Cemetery Man — Cemetery Man(UHD & Blu-Ray)
Cemetery Man is a heady and lightly surreal blend of horror, comedy, dark fantasy and ghoulish romance. The early 90’s euro cult film focuses on Francesco Dellamorte – played by British actor Rupert Everett- the guardian of a small, enchanted cemetery in northern Italy, where many of the dead come back to life in eight days being buried.
The film was the fourth & final horror film by Italian director Michele Soavi (Stage Fight, The Church) it aptly balances/ mixes its genres in a largely appealing, charming, and wacky manner. Here from Severin, as part of their series of reissues of the director's work is a two-disc UHD/Blu-Ray set, taking in a wonderful crystal clean 4k scan of the film, director commentary, and a total of around three hours’ worth of extras.
Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore, Of Death and Love) is from 1994- it was an Italian, French, and German joint production. It was of course directed by Michele Soavi, and co-written by Tiziano Sclavi and Gianni Romoli. It was based on the 1991 Tiziano Sclav novel Dellamorte Dellamore, as well as the comic book series influenced by it- Dylan Dog.
The film runs at just over the one hour and forty-six-minute mark, and largely manages to maintain its pull/ entertainment- and due to this I’d say it’s the most effective of Soavi’s horror films. Francesco Dellamorte ( Everett) lives in a run-down building on the cemetery site- so he can be ready to put back to death the rising dead- either by gunshot or pushing something into the corpse's head. He’s helped by the tubby, animalistic, shaved-headed, and often drooling Gnaghi(François Hadji-Lazaro).
The pair seem to managing their job well enough- then Francesco becomes enchanted by a woman who comes and visits her older husband's grave. Slow- surely a chemistry develops between the two, and one thing leads to another he starts making love to her on top of her husband's grave- he claws his way out of the grave, ripping out the shoulder of his large-breasted wife, she dies shortly after, and Francesco awaits to see if his beloved arises.
He's not the only one who has found love, Gnaghi meets an older teen girl he is rather taken with, and to show his appreciation he vomits all over her!…..she, a bunch of her biker mates, and a bus fall of scouts are involved in a mass crash- with the graveyard getting very busy, who will raise & who will stay put?.
The design of the cemetery and the pair's home is very dark fantasy- which is edged with a lightly dreamy arthouse tone. We get shots looking up from the grave to lines of evergreen trees, corpses are covered with white see-through sheets as skull head sculptures drip water down on them. Mixed in with this we have touches of dark/ quirky humour, spluttery zombie killing, and touches of nudity.
Cemetery Man has its own tone & feel, and you can most certainly see why it is thought of as one of the last great European horror films of the 1990s.
Moving onto this new two UHD/Blu-Ray set, and the second disc is a locked region A. The UHD features the film and commentary track. With the film, commentary, and extras on the Blu-ray. The 4k scan is a thing of beauty- full of clarity and depth.
On the extras side, we get the following new things. First is a track with director Michele Soavi and screenwriter Gianni Romoli- this is in Italian with nicely clear yellow-coloured English subtitles. The track starts rather suddenly with no introduction- the pair start talking about the film's opening shot of a skull, and he talks about how he used an Innovision lens to shoot it. They discuss the introduction of the lead character, and how it effectively brings us into the strange dark fantasy. We find out Everett was very enthusiastic about the role. They talk about how it was difficult to write the film's script- as the novel it was based on had a very episodic feel and a less-than-consistent narrative. We find they used two cemeteries for the film- one for the daytime and one for the night-time. We find out they spent ten days filming in the locations. They talk about the rhythm of the editing- which resembles a comic book panel. They discuss how they wanted all the effects to be live, with only a few done digitally. Later on, they discuss when the film becomes more realistic/ set within reality. They talk about the film's romantic and comedy elements, pointing out bit part actors, and more. The track is most certainly worth a play.
Otherwise, on the new extra side, we get a selection of in-depth/ fairly lengthy interviews. At The Graves (35.49) with director Michele Soavi. Of Love And Death(20.37) with actor Rupert Everett. She (24.15) with actress Anna Falchi. With an archive making of (18.32).
Cemetery Man is a classy and highly distinctive slice of European horror, easily being one of the key horror films of the 1990s. This two-disc set from Severin serves up a lovely 4k scan, as well as a wonderful selection of worthy extras. If you have any interest in Euro horror or enjoy original blends of comedy, dark fantasy and ghoulish romance- this a must-have!