LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CEMETERY MAN (1996) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

This is the best Italian zombie movie of the ‘90s.  Rupert (My Best Friend’s Wedding) Everett stars as a caretaker for a ramshackle cemetery where the dead come back to life after seven days.  Since he would lose his job if anyone found out about the zombies (or “Returners”), he takes to shooting them in the head and reburying them with the help of his bald mute assistant (who keeps his true love’s severed head alive in his television).  Director Michele (Stagefright) Soavi’s macabre humor and Everett’s deadpan performance make this a classic.  Any movie that features zombie Boy Scouts, nuns, and bikers (that come out of the ground on their Harley) is an automatic must-see.  

AKA:  Dellamorte Dellamore.  AKA:  Demons ’95.  AKA:  Of Love and Death.  AKA:  Zombie Graveyard.  AKA:  Of Love, of Death.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

This is one of those movies that get better with age.  The older I get, the more the line, “At a certain point, you know more dead people than living”, resonates with me, and the more I appreciate the melancholy passages in between the zombie carnage.  The last of the great Italian zombie films, Cemetery Man is the final word on the genre and a fitting coda.  It is also one of the funniest zombie comedies this side of Dead Alive.

Rupert Everett gives his career best performance as Dellamorte.  His deadpan delivery of even the smallest line often generates big laughs.  I can’t imagine why I never mentioned Anna Falchi in my original review as she is rather incredible in this.  She’s easily in the Top Ten babes of all time, and her love scene in the graveyard was one of the most rewound sequences in my household back in the day.  Does the movie kind of threaten to go off the rails near the end?  (Especially when Dellamorte goes on his shooting spree.)  Perhaps, but then again, that just cements its anything-goes freewheeling status. 

4K UHD NOTES:

Severin has done another wonderful job with their transfer.  I’ve only seen this in on old pan-and-scan VHS and grainy DVD copies, and this looks about a hundred times better than either of those.  The opening shot in particular looks great, and the dark color palette in the numerous nighttime scenes lend considerable atmosphere.  Of course, the best-looking thing in High Def is… you guessed it… Anna Falchi. 

Growl.