Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore) is a wonderfully surreal, horror, comedy, love story from Italian director Michele Soavi. This is not a zombie film although the undead feature quite heavily, it is more of a philosophical discourse on the nature of life and the duality of death and love "dellamore" meaning "of love" and "dellamorte" meaning "of death". Rupert Everett plays Francis Dellamorte caretaker of the local cemetery (get it, he’s called “of death” and he looks after a cemetery) in the small Italian town of Buffalora.

For reasons never explained, recently deceased corpses are rising from their graves and Dellamorte for reasons never explained, takes it upon himself to put them back in the ground after providing a bullet (or spade, or pick) in the head (or eye, or cheek) of course.

This is little more than subtext, the real meat of the plot is the doomed love story between the enigmatically named “She” played by the simply beautiful Anna Falchi. Dellamorte, so troubled by the relationship, becomes unable to differentiate between killing the living and living dead, which is a big clue to the Dellamorte Dellamore’s buried meaning.

Being Italian it’s very stylish and at the same time rough around the edges, this serves only to increase the charm and the enjoyment. Despite being shot in English there is the typical bad dubbing always associated with Italian horror films and although Everett dubs himself, I suspect the film was shot without sound and dialogue and sound effects were added in post production. The film hangs on a brilliant laconic world weary performance from Rupert Everett, at times I got the impression he wasn’t sure if he knew what sort of film he’s making, and I always wondered why he did a film so out of keeping with the rest of his roles, if I ever run into him I’ll be sure to ask why. As well as Falchi, Everett is ably supported by François Hadji-Lazaro as a grunting, loveable simpleton assistant Gnaghi, who is pretty handy with a spade.

Performances and story aside, what sets this apart from most other horror films (apart from Soavi’s other work) Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man) is beautifully shot with incredibly imaginative camera work. Even though low budget, Soavi manages to pull off physical tricks with the camera that many directors now (Michael Bay) struggle to achieve with CGI. All this is combined with fantastic use of music and being Italian horror it’s a synthesiser score, no incidental music here, every piece stands on its own. 

Unfairly criticised by many for it’s ambiguities, in particular the deeply surreal ending, I think these only serve to make it a better film, forcing you to think for yourself. It’s not a zombie film, which is where I think the criticisms arise, it’s a film with (metaphorical) zombies in it. Oddly, even though it might sound pretentious, it’s not, it’s funny, touching and disgusting, an unsung underrated and influential classic.