I should have known it. The rest of the world doesn't exist. Better known in the UK and America as Cemetary Man, Michele Soavis loopy comic horror initially appears to be an Evil Dead style black comedy horror movie, about a young man acting as the caretaker and groundskeeper of an isolated town cemetary in Italy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS-GpYY6f2o Francesco Dellamortes other, less savoury job, is taking out the dead when they begin to rise from their graves sometimes with a spade to the head, usually with a dum-dum bullet between the eyes. Played with insouciant black humour by a young Rupert Everett, Dellamortes hobbies include crossing out the names of the dead in the local telephone directory and trying to put together a skull-shaped puzzle, or a jigsawed skull (its never made clear which). Grimly hilarious and nihilistic by turns, Soavis film defies categorisation as a simply horror-comedy like Raimis films. Dellamorte calls the dead Returners, and his job is to put them down to protect the town: when he complains about the problem and demands an investigation, hes told to fill out paperwork, but decides its less hassle just to shoot them. His best friend is his assistant, a cheerful man with learning difficulties who develops a wholesome, innocent romance with the severed head of the mayors daughter. Death visits Dellamorte to ask him not to kill the dead, but rather the living instead to save time. Being constantly surrounded by the living dead is no way for a young man to live, and Dellamorte finds himself in love with a young widow that visits the cemetary. When she dies, killed by the rotting corpse of her husband, he begins to see her everywhere, as if shes returning constantly over and over. As his grip on reality slips, he begins to murder actual living people, but nobody seems to notice and when he attempts to leave town to start again, finds the road ends in a chasm, and theres nothing else to the world except for more mountains, more hills. So home he goes. Its difficult to overemphasize how brilliant Dellamorte, Dellamore is. The dialogue crackles with mordant wit, the absurdist, fatalistic action like a Halloween romance staged by Samuel Beckett. Its like no other film ever made so of course, very few people have ever seen it. Well, theres no excuse its on YouTube. Go ahead, Ill wait here until you get back.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
