Dellamorte Dellamore

If you don't mind horrific, grotesque comedy that mixes the gore of George Romero and Dario Argento with the quixotic irreverence of Monty Python and Delicatessen, Cemetery Man provides the opportunity for a funny, strange time at the movies. Moreover this is a highly atmospheric film and Soavi's love for the horror genre shows in the composition of almost every scene. Soavi uses the time not spent on raucous action to cultivate a sense of atmosphere and craft surreal beauty in the limited setting of the graveyard and that in my opinion is as good as any to see this film.

The great thing about this movie is that it's not scared to walk a dangerous line between two rarely compatible genres - tongue in cheek horror comedy and European art flick. On its simplest level, it's a schlock zombie flick - pandering to the gore fans. But on another level, it has enough thought-provoking material and poetic direction to please the turtle-neck brigade at your local arts and drama society.

Director Michael Soavi risked alienating both camps with this approach. After all - do fans of George A. Romero *really* want to see zombies that don't seem all that dangerous? Or hear philosophical dialogue about the blurry line between what is alive and what is dead? And conversely - do the coffee-house beatniks really want their poetic escapism dampened by bullets through nuns eyeballs and flying, biting severed heads in bridal veils??? If you had asked me a year ago I would have said that the mix sounded ridiculous.

Now though - I stand corrected.

On the side appealing to my sense of aesthetics and intellect - Michael Soavi's direction was wonderful. The screen is alive with wide angles, slo-mo flowing silks and drips of water. Reminiscent of Ridley Scott in his better days in fact. But wait? What's this cutting through the arty farty pretension? A Sam Raimi style track and pan here? A Jean Paul Jeunet style superimposition there? The whole film is an exercise in visual flair. I can only wish that hollywood had more directors of this calibre. On top of this - the screenplay was superbly written. It delivered shock, comedy or deep sentiment with perfect timing. The climax was stunning and left me very quiet throughout the closing credits.

On the side appealing to my sense of "Hey lads, let's crack open a few beers and watch some chicks get naked and eaten by zombies!" I was equally satisfied. The gore and heaving breast content is most adequate. The zombies were brilliantly designed and had distinct personalities. Even in its deeper moments the film always seems to have it's tongue firmly in its cheek and a mischevious gleam in its eye.

At various times I was reminded of Evil Dead 2, The Hudsucker Proxy, Bad Taste, City of the lost children, and Zombie flesheaters to name but a few. An unusual mix indeed - but one that somehow works. All said and done, I heartily recommend this movie to anyone willing to try out - just for once - a zombie flick with a brain (pun intended).

In Buffalora, Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the administrator of the local cemetery and he lives in a house by the cemetery with the intellectually disabled gravedigger Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) that is his only friend. The cemetery has a peculiarity since the dead reanimates on the seventh night after their death and Dellamorte and Gnaghi together hunt them down. When a gorgeous widow (Anna Falchi) attends the funeral of her old husband, Dellamorte falls in an unrequited love with her. One day, he shows the ossuary to her stimulating her sex drive, and they make love on the top of her husband's grave. However he awakes and bites her, and when she raises, Dellamorte shoots her. On the next days, Gnaghi falls in love with the mayor's daughter Valentina Scanarotti (Fabiana Formica) but she is beheaded in a motorcycle accident with her friend Claudio (Alessandro Zamattio). Along the next days, Dellamorte meets two women that looks alike his deceased love, but his romance ends tragically. He decides to leave Buffalora with Gnaghi, but their journey abruptly ends.

"Dellamorte Dellamore" is an unconventional, weird, funny and cult black comedy. The surrealistic plot has a great cinematography, direction and performances. Dellamorte is a detached character and Rupert Everett is excellent. Anna Falchi is very sexy and has an amazing body. Unfortunately the dubbing is terrible. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Pelo Amor e Pela Morte" ("For the Love and for the Death")

I scoured the shelves of my local video store, looking and looking for something in the horror section that might actually fall under the category of "quality horror movie." Well, this movie - out of an offering of what seemed like hundreds - is the only one that seemed to stick out and grab me, so I rented it. And I'm glad I did, I was NOT disappointed.

This movie possesses all those "pluses" that I like in those movies that I give high marks to. Namely, it is absorbing, thick with atmosphere, adroitly filmed, has great location scenery and expertly designed sets, and has compelling, believable characters who actually make you care about their individual fates as the movie unfolds. Yes, this movie has all that, and it is hard to believe that I found all this in a (gasp!) Italian zombie flick.

But it's true, and as you can see from previous comments herein, most other people commenting on this film were also quite impressed with the film.

I also like the ending... I will be the first to admit that the ending is as enigmatic and puzzling as many other segments of the film. Perhaps that's why I like the ending: it's not a slick, hokey happy-ending sort of finish. And by the way, has anybody else noticed that the ending is a clever variation of the proverbial "cliff hanger" ending??

Anyway, I heartily recommend this movie to anyone who is a horror-zombie-gore-fantasy film lover who wants some quality goods. There is gore aplenty, though I never found it to be disgusting or disturbing. Plus, there are some beguiling and wonderfully sexy scenes featuring that most beautiful model/actress from Finland, Anna Falchi. Rupert Everett is captivating as the title character, and the guy who plays his half-wit assistant Gnaghi is wonderfully expressive - it's hard to believe he barely utters a complete sentence the entire film.

Oh, and one more thing... after seeing this film, should the need ever arise, you should be utterly inspired to go out and plug rampaging zombies squarely in the head with dum-dum bullets.

There was a distinct lack of truly great horror in the nineties; but this film, Dellamorte Dellamore, tops the list of what little good ones there were. It's actually quite shocking that this came out during a huge depression for horror cinema, because it's easily one of the greatest horror movies I ever saw. Dellamorte Dellamore is a rather strange mix of horror, romance, twisted fairytale and comedy that isn't quite like anything else in cinema; horror or otherwise. The film knows that it's not the usual sort of film, and revels in this fact throughout. Dellamorte Dellamore buys itself a licence do whatever it wants through the fact that it so weird, and therefore no matter what the film throws at you; it's easy to just back and enjoy it. The film is directed by Dario Argento's talented understudy, Michele Soavi and finds an unlikely lead in Rupert Everett. The story follows Everett; the keeper of a cemetery in a small Italian town called Buffalora. He lives there with his assistant; the deformed Gnaghi, but this isn't quite the normal cemetery, however, as here the dead come back to life and it's up the cemetery man to put them back to sleep. When he meets the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his cemetery, however, it appears that his luck is starting to change.

The atmosphere presented in this film is truly brilliant, and one of Dellamorte Dellamore's main assets. A cemetery is always going to present a macabre location for a film's characters to inhabit, but the Gothic design in this film ensures that Buffalora's cemetery is more than the horror film norm. The way that the smoke protrudes from the graves, along with several little special effects that director Michele Soavi has seen fit to implement all help to give the film that unique ambiance that it portrays so well. Soavi has given this film it's own style throughout, and even the zombies adhere to it. Soavi's zombies, like the rest of the film, don't stick to convention and rather than being covered with blood, falling to pieces of screaming "brains!", these zombies really look like they've been underground, and also manage to tie in with the downbeat tone of the rest of the movie. A lot of imagination has gone into Dellamorte Dellamore, and almost every sequence is soaked in it. It's things like the way that the cemetery man's assistant takes the mayor's daughter's head from her grave and puts it in the television that makes Dellamorte Dellamore what it is, and not just any other zombie movie.

Horror movies aren't known for great acting, but Dellamorte Dellamore breaks convention once again on that front. Rupert Everett puts in a performance that goes over and above what audiences have come to expect from him given his earlier roles. Like the rest of the film, he just fits in; and if you'd never seen Everett in anything before, you would think that he made this kind of movie all the time. The fact that he isn't essentially a horror film actor only makes the performance even more impressive. Anna Falchi stars opposite him in three different female roles, and looks absolutely great in all of them. The rest of the cast is made up of lesser-known actors, with the very odd François Hadji-Lazaro standing out most among them. Director Michele Soavi started out working under the great Dario Argento, but the few films he has directed himself show that he is a bigger talent than his resume lets on. Here, for example, he has created a film that absolutely stands on it's own. Dellamorte Dellamore goes beyond the title 'horror film', and comes out in a sub-genre all of it's own. Films like this don't often come to the attention of the mainstream; and that's a shame because originality like this should be praised to high heaven. Dellamorte Dellamore is a film that is impossible to ignore and, providing you can find a copy, ignoring is definitely not the recommended action!