Midnight movie madness : Dellamorte Dellamore

I didn´t expect to write another post so soon after my last one but one of the reason why it never gets boring writing this blog is that I never know what´s going to be the next topic. So it´s time to resurrect the beloved MIDNIGHT MOVIE MADNESS series for a look at the cult classic DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE.


The movie was shown Yesterday by ARTE and since it combines three of my favorite things - comics, horror and sex - I thought this would be just right for this blog. The movie is based on the book by Tiziano Sclavi the writer of Italy´s most famous comic DYLAN DOG published by the publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore along with other well known comics like TEX,


NATHAN NEVER


and MARTIN MYSTERE.


Even Umberto Eco outed himself as a fan of the comics with the scurillous ghosthunter and heartbreaker : " Homer, the bible and Dylan Dog are so good that I read them every day. "

I already wrote in detail about Dylan DOG in this post so I won´t bore you with that and concentrate on the movie.


Like I said, the movie uses elements from the comic series, and according to some internet websites Rupert Everett was the source for Dylan Dog´s look. So it could be a case of art imitating life imitating art although the trademark red shirt was changed for a white one.


DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE ( or CEMETERY MAN like it´s called in America ) is a gruesome slapstick / romantic comedy / provincial satire / existentialist fantasy amalgamation which proved a popular success in Italy.

United States distributor October Films changed its title to Cemetery Man and saddled the film with a campy ad campaign, finally releasing it on April 26, 1996. In the US, it received mostly negative critical reaction,small theatrical distribution and a frequently delayed Region 1 DVD release. The film missed popular success, but found a stateside cult following over time, via home video. Renowned director Martin Scorsese called Dellamorte Dellamore one of the best Italian films of the 1990s.


It tells the old story of boy meets girl, boy has sex with girl on husband´s tomb, husband comes back as zombie ( during said sex ), bites girl who comes back as a zombie too and gets killed by boy. Then boy meets another girl who looks like the first girl, but turns out to be a prostitute, meets a third girl who also looks like the first girl, takes drugs to become impotent because the third girl has " penis phobia " only to learn afterwards that she has overcome her fear by being raped by her boss and now pretty much likes sex and wants to marry her boss.

But they can still be friends in a platonic kind of way, right ?



And if that sounds weird keep in mind that I haven´t even told you that said boy, Francesco Dellamorte, works as the local cemetery caretaker ( hencefort the english title ), that he carries a gun to kill the buried a second time when they return seven days after being buried as zombies and that one of Francesco´s hobbies is reading phone books.

" I have only read two books in my life. One I never finished, the other was the phone book. "

The movie is full of such great lines, brilliant ideas and takes turns in new directions when you least expect it. Zombies are almost done to death nowadays but this movie is more than just a simple zombie flick.

But let´s not forget the sex part of the movie which at no moment feels gratious. Anna Falchi, aside from being a stunning, sexy beauty with those pouty lips and curvaceous, hour - glass figure, plays three different roles and even gets to be one of the undead. It’s easy to see why Rupert Everett’s character falls so hard for her and repeatedly.

From DEEP FOCUS´review of the movie :

The movie never stops moving, twisting and turning its way to an oddly existential climax. The scenario, concentrates on the human characters rather than the zombies, and gives as much play to turmoil of the spirit as it does to the carnage that spills from the body. The world of Francesco Dellamorte runs parallel to George Romero's zombie apocalypse. Like Romero's trilogy, and quite unlike many of its imitators, Dellamorte Dellamore is a zombie movie with character.

Francesco is a misfit and a nihilist, but he's also a remarkable Everyman who commands our attention and our sympathy as he slouches toward the inevitable. Along those lines, the movie exhibits a well - developed sense of humor that goes a long way toward eliciting the viewer's sympathy. The characters aren't very pleasant, but you start to identify with them in spite of yourself. By the time the movie is over, their predicament almost seems to take on mythic proportions.

So DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE is definitely a movie to check out if you haven´t already seen it.



Another reason why I wanted to write this post - aside from having an excuse to mention DYLAN DOG on the blog - is that the movie with Brandon Routh that I mentioned has been finished.


I haven´t seen it yet and they made the usual changes but apparently Brandon Routh knew the comics before and the rest of the crew seems interested in doing a good adaption of the comic.



The usual links to acknowledge the various resources without whom the making of this post would not have been possible :

cemetery man imdb / cemetery man wikipedia

cemetery man synopsis by arte ( in german )

cemetery man review reverse shot / review radiator heaven

As always I´m closing this post with another video and as this is all about DYLAN DOG here´s a clip from the first DYLAN DOG PC game LUNA PARK.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest


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