Cemetery Man
| Cemetery Man | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michele Soavi |
| Produced by |
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| Screenplay by | Gianni Romoli Michele Soavi |
| Based on |
Dellamorte Dellamore by Tiziano Sclavi |
| Starring | |
| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Mauro Marchetti |
| Edited by | Franco Fraticelli |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | October Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country |
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| Language | Italian (dubbed) English (dubbed) |
| Budget | US$4 million |
| Box office | $253,969 |
Cemetery Man (Italian: Dellamorte Dellamore) is a 1994 Italian-French-German comedy horror film directed by Michele Soavi and starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro and Anna Falchi. It was written and produced by Gianni Romoli and Michele Soavi and based on a 1991 novel by Tiziano Sclavi. Sclavi is also the author of the comic Dylan Dog, which covers similar themes and whose protagonist is a Rupert Everett lookalike.
The film's story concerns the beleaguered caretaker of a small Italian cemetery, who searches for love while defending himself from dead people who keep rising again.
Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the cemetery caretaker in the small Italian town of Buffalora. He lives in a ramshackle house on the premises, constantly surrounded by death, with only his mentally handicapped assistant Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) for company. Young punks in town spread gossip that Dellamorte is impotent. His hobbies are reading outdated telephone directories, in which he crosses out the names of the deceased, and trying to assemble a puzzle shaped like a human skull. Gnaghi, whose interests include spaghetti and television, can speak only one word: "Gna."
The Latin inscription over the Buffalora Cemetery gate reads RESURRECTURIS ("For those who will rise again"), and indeed, Dellamorte has had his hands full of late. Some people rise from their graves on the seventh night following their death, reanimated and ready to assault the living. Dellamorte destroys these creatures, who he calls "Returners", before they overrun the town. Buffalora's mayor (Stefano Masciarelli) is so fixated on his campaigning that he seems unable even to hear Dellamorte's pleas for an investigation. In any event, being an outcast in the village and almost illiterate, Dellamorte doesn't want to lose the job. He opens up to his only friend, Franco, a municipal clerk, but doesn't file the paperwork necessary to get assistance: "It's easier just to shoot them."
At a funeral, Dellamorte falls hard and fast in love, with the unnamed young widow (Anna Falchi) of a rich, elderly man. The widow only begins to show an interest when Dellamorte tells her about the ossuary, which she adores. While consummating their relationship by her husband's grave, the husband returns, attacks, and bites her. She seems to die from the bite, but the coroner claims it was a heart attack. Fearing the worst, Dellamorte stays near her corpse, and shoots her when she rises.
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