Cemetery Man
Cemetery Man tells a story of Francesco
(played by Rupert Everett), a groundskeeper at a cemetery in a small Italian
village. I guess it’s not that small a
village seeing as it’s the entire universe, but it’s certainly quaint. Working a creepy solitary job with an obese
mute for an assistant is enough of a cockblock but there’s the added problems
of the dead returning as zombies as well as being taunted personally by Death
who urges him to go on killing sprees.
But still he finds love relatively easily within the first twenty
minutes of the film. One of those rare
women who find grottos full of human remains romantic. Although she doesn’t mind skeletons ripping
her clothes off and being shagged on her dead husband’s grave, she does draw
the line at being watched by voyeuristic flying blue-flaming marshmallows, or
maybe she’s just not willing to allow that sort of thing before marriage. Italians are conservative in some ways.
Everything seems perfect until her
death. But he then meets another woman
who is identical only she has a phobia of phalluses. Dissolving his phallus off like Eli Wallach
in Circle of Iron would take too
long so he contemplates having phallus removal surgery. I can see how he might not be aware that she is
playing some sort of sadistic game because the film The Shape of Things had not yet been made, but I think cutting off
your dick so that you can get closer to screwing some chick seems somewhat
self-defeating, but maybe he’s got a lot of confidence in his tongue skills.
Things don’t really work out with her
either, and so he moves on to another identical salami-nippled woman. She turns out to be a hooker and he pulls the
prostitution version of the dine-and-dash.
But this film really is about a lot more than how romance is choice
between a corpse, a cockaphobe, and a hooker.
Although I really don’t have any fucking clue what. This is one of the most random movies I’ve
ever seen. It walks a very fine
line. It approaches that line of
becoming some sort of Jorodowsky level madness but it also always seems like it
could be reigned in to be more of a palatable Sam Raimi type of horror
comedy. It just always keeps you off
balance.
I give a good chunk of the credit to
Rupert Everett in the lead role. He brings
a bit of a dry British vibe to your Bruce Campbell type of handsome
zombie-slaying smartassed hero that holds all this insanity together. He carries the film pretty well by both
seeming aware of the madness surrounding him but not being too detached from it
in some sort of deflating ironic way.
Normally a romance subplot about a mute ogre dating the mayor’s
daughter’s underage severed head would be the type of thing that would
overwhelm most movies. Even ensemble
pictures like Kingdom of Heaven would
probably not be able take a subplot like that and still leave people talking
about the main plot.
Even the trashy girl who’s got such a
crush on Claudio that she’s honour to be eaten by his zombie would probably
count as a WTF moment if the rest of this film hadn’t achieved a broader
all-encompassing WTF. I give the film’s
director Michele Soavi the bulk of the credit.
He’d worked in Argento’s shop and on a number of Argento’s films before
directing a couple of typical cheapo Italian horror b-movies. One was a standard slasher flick Bloody Bird about an owl with a
chainsaw killing actors (I designed a shirt based on this movie)
and the other was a half decent The
Shining knockoff called The Church. But neither of those would suggest he had
anything this wacky in him.
This is the second time I’ve seen this
film and I think it is definitely a must-see for most people at least once in
their lives, but I especially recommend it to all these critics who keep
bitching about how zombie movies are old and there’s nothing interesting that
can be done with a zombie movie other than ripping off Romero. I don’t really see how anybody can watch this
and still think that.
If you liked
this, check out these other recommended readings:
Bloody Bird: A Film About an Owl that Kills Actors with a
Chainsaw
This film was also released as “Stagefright”, “Deleria”, and
“Aquarius”,
but you didn’t see it under those names either.
The film that will
alienate all your friends and family. Guaranteed.
Street Trash: The
Director’s Cut
Before hobos had shotguns,
their bang came from within.