15 Great Italian Horror Films You Must See Before You Die
2. Dellamorte Dellamore (Michele Soavi, 1994)
“Mind your business! I shall be eaten by whoever I please!”
Dellamorte Dellamore, or Cemetery Man, is still criminally underappreciated and under-seen. It has all the components of a horror-comedy destined to become a major cult classic, rather like Italy’s answer to Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, but somehow it never seemed to find its audience. Soavi’s film boasts some highly quotable one-liners, as well as a thoroughly entertaining relationship between graveyard caretaker Francesco (Rupert Everett) and his oafish man-child assistant Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro), who make for a brilliant comedic duo. It’s refreshing in a zombie film when your leading characters are more watchable than the zombies. The sets are probably the highlight of Dellamorte Dellamore (Soavi filmed in an actual ossuary with real bones).
Don’t go into this film expecting The Return of the Living Dead or Braindead; yes, it’s very funny and thoroughly grotesque, but it’s also deeper and more poetic than it has any right to be.