Cemetery Man
1994 Directed by Michele Soavi
Horror Marathon 2023 Day 1 - Film 2
Dellamorte is the cemetery groundskeeper- taking care that its inhabitants don't get out of their long slumbers. Unfortunately this seems to happen nightly in his small town. Each kill comes with a zany nonchalance of violent gunplay like that of the Evil Dead series. Dellamorte's only companion is an Igor like character in Gnaghi who can barely utter with coherence. What follows is a series of happenstance with Dellamorte dispatching of a series of women who seem to have the same face. He can't seem to pull away from fetishizing death and her undead body until he rejects love altogether. His own frustration with sex is telling at how disenchanted Dellamorte has become. Gnaghi on the other hand seems to fall in love with the head of a local girl he's dug up- but Dellamorte will have none of that.
It's Dellamorte who seems to have gone further into nihilist fantasy- not feeling that anything he does has any meaning. Church and State don't particularly care about the undead at the cemetery. With his allure to the dead and dying he can't seem to tell the difference between undead and the living. The film changes tone there- driving the narration into American Psycho like territory- kill after kill. And though he tries to break out of his stale environment it doesn't seem to ever let him go- there is nothing outside of his small Italian village- nothing to change but perhaps a greater appreciation for his companion Gnaghi.
Dellamorte acts out of impotence- as many in the town assume Dellamorte is- or at least can't find any sexual confidence with anyone but the dead. When others seem to be attracted to his dead world he can't seem to accept it himself, and even tries to reject his physical sex. In the same way the film doesn't seem to quite stick to a style- feeling like several attached stories before plodding into the final act without an exact destination. However there are charmingly silly horror sequences that feel at home with those with morbid sensibility.