Misunderstood Masterpieces: Cemetery Man
Posted by Will Helm on 04.22.2003
...or, If You Can Figure out the Ending, You Deserve a Prize*
Sometimes you see something that you can’t believe actually exists. The Michele Soavi Franco-Germano-Italian production of Dell' Amore, Della Morte, better known by its English title, Cemetery Man is definitely one of those things. This is, by far, the strangest movie I have ever seen that is actually likable and entertaining. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
We begin our story in the tiny little Italian town of Buffalora. Ah, Buffalora, where it's always sort of windy. Ah, Buffalora, where the mayor will do anything to get reelected. Ah, Buffalora, where the doctor and the chief of police are oddly English. Ah, Buffalora, where the dead rise from their graves days after burial (or death...this plot point isn't too clear). Ah, Buffalora, where this joke never...WHAT WAS THAT LAST ONE?!?
Yes, you read that right; Buffalora has a zombie problem. The dead rise from their graves and the only person with the experience (or the misfortune) to deal with them is our friendly neighborhood undertaker (BONG!): Francesco Della Morte (Rupert Everett). Here's the first shocking bit of this movie: Everett plays a straight man (really?!?) but he has started a rumor that he is impotent (oh...so that's what they're calling it). He explains, through VERY helpful narration, that the dead rise from their graves within a week of their death (this isn't entirely exact) and can only be "killed" by a blow to the brainpan (a la Night of the Living Dead). He does have help though: Noghi (François Hadji-Lazaro), his somewhat-mute-but-lovable assistant, who bares an odd resemblance to Curly Howard. Yeah, the Stooge.
Life in the cemetery goes by fairly normally (other than the zombie killings) as Francesco reads the phone book and tries to reassemble a skull (and Noghi watches television), until the arrival of the mysterious Lei. Who is "she"? A widow, whose much-older husband has recently died, played by Anna Falchi, an ultra-hot Finnish-Italian model-actress with giant features (and lots of hyphens). What do I mean by "giant features"? Everything about her seems extra-large: giant eyes, a giant forehead, big blonde hair, giant lips, and MASSIVE PERFECTLY SPHERICAL (and probably fake) breasts.
Francesco falls for the hot widow and makes out with her in an ossuary, a dank pit with a bunch of bones that gets her really hot and bothered. They later copulate on top of her husband's grave. Nice. That's class. Speaking of class, for the ladies, here you get to see Rupert Everett's ass. For the guys, Falchi's prodigious boobs. Who said this isn't a date movie! Of course, a moment of romance has some consequences as her husband returns from the grave and bites her on the arm, apparently killing her. Oooops! I hate it when that happens! And who knew zombies could be so damned jealous!
Why do I say apparently when the zombie decides to snack on the hot chick? Well, later in the film, Lei, now in the ossuary, appears to return from the dead. Francesco shoots her in the head, maybe killing her or her zombie form. Why do I say maybe? Francesco grazes Lei's head, so it's unclear whether this kills her human form or stuns her zombie form...because she later comes back AGAIN as a full-on zombie with roots and crap growing out of her. Oooooh...sexy. Zombie-Lei bites Francesco on the neck, leading to some good old-fashioned delirium and homicidal insanity.
Meanwhile, as the Lei affair is going on, things are heating up in town. The mayor is threatening to close the cemetery, jeopardizing Francesco's job! The mayor is also up for re-election! Noghi falls in love with the mayor's teenage daughter and then throws up on her! She thinks that's cute and then jumps onto some guy's motorcycle and rides off where they then get into an accident and she gets her head run over by a bus full of boy scouts, which also crashes. What an odd confluence of non-sequitirs, disguised as a movie plot! Now please allow me to catch my breath.
Now up to his neck in dead to kill, Francesco kicks undead zombie Boy Scout ass, while Noghi watches TV. Francesco bludgeons a dead nun to death and then accidentally shoots Noghi's television. Poor Noghi; what's grumbling Stooge lookalike to do? Why, steal the head of the mayor's daughter, of course! Noghi digs up his love and attempts to get her out of the tomb, but, due to the accident, he only gets out her head. Good enough, though, as the head decides to talk to him (a precedent set in The Brain That Wouldn't Die) and he endears himself to said head. After a brief chitchat, Noghi walks off playing his violin, and the head follows along the ground. Yes. The main reason to see the film finally revealed. Not dark humor, not Finnish-Italian breasts, not Rupert Everett's ass, but A WALKING, TALKING SEVERED HEAD!
At this point, it seems that Francesco's zombie bite is infected because he has a talk with the devil. Really. The devil tells Francesco to stop killing the dead and start killing the living. Goodie. Oh, and the mayor discovers his daughter's head is missing, so he finds her and summarily gets his neck bitten by his daughter's WALKING, TALKING, FLYING ZOMBIE SEVERED HEAD! That sucks. Now the mayor's dead, the severed head is dead again, Noghi's upset, and Francesco's horny and homicidal. Oh, and somewhere in this mess, the ex-girlfriend of the guy who was driving the motorcycle shows up at the cemetery for some port-mortem lovin’ with her now-dead ex. Maybe this film is just a metaphor for the need for sexual release...
Francesco, to release his pent-up frustration, goes on a killing spree, but the police totally ignore it. A new mayor shows up in town and brings his assistant, played by...Anna Falchi!!! She's back again!!! Couldn't they hire another actress? Actually, here she looks quite good, with her hair straight and pulled back and a cute little pair of glasses. But I (and my libido) digress. Francesco falls in love (again) but she can only be attracted to impotent men because she fears penis. Francesco goes to the friendly English doctor for a castration, but the doctor only injects his testes with some stuff. He goes to tell his love, but she confesses that the new mayor raped her. Then, to apologize, they had sex. And she liked it. So, oh well Francesco, she likes the penis after all.
Francesco, now really frustrated, meets up with ANOTHER Anna Falchi on the street, goes back to her apartment, and bones the hell out of her. Then it turns out she's a hooker. Dammit...I hate it when that happens. So he burns down her apartment. The police ignore it, because they've found the real killer! And it's Francesco's only friend Franco! Francesco goes on another killing spree, this one out of jealousy, in the hospital. The police still ignore it. Now it's (finally) time to leave Buffalora. Francesco and Noghi pack up their things and head on out. Once past the city limits...there's nothing. The road just ends. Francesco and Noghi switch roles and it starts to snow...and then turns into a snowglobe. What does it all mean!?!
Honestly, even though this movie makes no sense, it's still really entertaining...at least in a campy I-don't-get-European-movies sort-of way. If you haven't seen it already, track it down and give it a look. Name another movie that features walking, talking, flying severed heads and perfectly spherical breasts? Didn't think so.
* Offer not valid anywhere, at anytime. Besides, there isn’t a prize anyway…
…But I do have a surprise! Seeing as this is a bit of a short review, I’ve decided to be generous and provide some BONUS CONTENT. Oooooh, ain’t he nice! And what do have I have to offer my ravenous fanbase? (Stop laughing. Really. Please stop. It’s hurting my feelings.) Well, a summary of every erotic crime thriller ever made…ever! Here we go…
OK, there’s a grizzled and troubled middle-aged cop, probably played by a has-been television star, and he gets paired up with a happy-go-lucky, just-out-of-the-academy rookie who’s brash but lovable. It seems that they’re on the trail of some sort of odd drug/crooked cop/contraband weapons conspiracy and they’d solve it easily if the ultra-hot Assistant District Attorney/Police Psychologist didn’t keep getting in their way. Somewhere about 45 minutes into the movie, the there’s a shootout and the rookie cop gets shot and killed/maimed/hit by a car. While mourning the loss of his partner, the grizzled cop decides to sleep on a couch in the living room of the ultra-hot Assistant DA/Police Psychologist. He has a nightmare about something or other and wakes up violently, which awakens the hot chick, saxophone music starts playing, and they have sex. Probably because a woman can’t resist a man who has violent nightmares. Anyway, somewhere after this, the now-suddenly-helpless girl gets kidnapped/threatened/almost killed, the grizzled cop springs into action, and it usually turns out to be the police chief or district attorney behind it all. The end.
I’m really sorry if I’ve ruined every single movie of that genre for all those reading this…but no one said they were good to begin with.
