GeekTyrant October Zombie Fest: CEMETERY MAN

Movie ZombieHorror by Joey Paur

Every October we here at GeekTyrant try to do something fun for the Halloween season. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, it’s just a fun season of the year, and I love horror movies! Our first year we focused on Italian Horror films, the next year we focused on the classic Universal Horror Monster movies, This year we are going to put a focus on Zombies! Why? Because we love zombies! I also thought it would be a cool and fun lead-in to AMC’s new zombie TV series The Walking Dead which will be released Halloween night.

So far we've discussed White Zombie, and Serpent and the Rainbow, we will continue with....

Cemetery Man a.k.a. Dellamorte Dellamore

Here’s a zombie film many of you may not have heard of, it all depends how much of a hard core horror fan you are.

This 1994 Italian film tells the story of Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett), the caretaker at a cemetery infected by a plague that causes the dead to come back to life seven days after being burried. Dellamorte whose name translates as "St. Francis of the Dead" takes it all in stride, keeping around a variety of inventive weapons with which to re-dispatch the dead. Dellamorte's sole companion in life is his assistant, a mentally challenged man named Gnaghi, who expresses his ideas and opinions only saying "Gna". There comes a point where he come across the most beautiful woman he's ever seen at a funeral.

This is not your normal everyday zombie horror film. After he comes across this woman the movie turns into a great romantic comedy… with zombies. A perfect date movie during the Halloween season!

This is pretty much an art house zombie film. The movie is a low-budget Intelligent, beautifully-shot film that was awesomely directed by Italian horror master Michele Soavi (Stage Fright).

I highly recommend you watch this film if you haven’t seen it yet.

This is one of my favorite quotes from the film:

The Living Dead and the dying living are all the same. Cut from the same cloth. But disposing of dead people is a public service, whereas you're in all sorts of trouble if you kill someone while they're still alive.

Here's the trailer for the film:

Here are some fun trivia facts about the film:

  • According to Director Michele Soavi, The "returners" get their energy from the Mandragola roots in the cemetery. 
  • An American company was willing to fund and distribute the movie if 'Matt Dillon' was cast as Francesco. 
  • The sets for the cemetery in the film were built upon actual abandoned cemetery grounds in Italy. 
  • The ossuary (a crypt for bones) that was used in the film was quite real. Supposedly one of the crew members removed some of the bones from the ossuary during filming, but quickly replaced them the next day claiming to have encountered an angry ghost following the removal of the bones. 
  • The English translation of Dellamorte Dellamore is 'Of Dead of Love.' 
  • In the late 90's when Rupert Everett gained some popularity in America, he approached Michele Soavi about doing an Americanized remake of 'Dellamorte Dellamore'. It never materialized though. 

Here are a few images from the film:


 

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