This plays as if Argento, Kafka, Dali, Leone and Romero went to the pub one night, got hammered on absinthe and collectively said: "You know what would be a good idea for a film...?"
CEMETERY MAN is an Italian black comedy zombie flick that effortlessly succeeds at being weird, bizarre, unconventional, erotic and generally unnerving throughout. It is at times crass and gross, arty and visually sensual, confusing and uneven. But it remains consistently quite compelling and utterly impossible to pigeonhole.
Rupert Everett plays the caretaker of a provincial cemetery where the dead come to life and it's his job to put them back in the ground by delivering extreme head trauma with bullet, blade and blunt instrument. Add three women in his life, played by the same actress but apparently different characters, a semi-mute and mentally deficient assistant who is in love with a talking severed head in a bridal veil, a dumb and clueless cop, a gang of biker delinquents, serial murder and the grim reaper himself. Then chuck in some metaphysical philosophy on the nature of existence and what constitutes the world, life and death, along with a dash of surrealism, a pinch of necrophilia and a large dose of graphic violence and gore and there you have it. Or there you don't exactly, because these elements only scratch the surface without touching upon the multiple undercurrents, plot threads and shrouded meanings running beneath.
It was a financial failure and critically ill-received on release. Prime cult fodder, then, and that status gave it a reputation and saved it from obscurity. Whether you enjoy it or not is in the lap of the gods. I can imagine a lot of people had their expectations subverted because without some foreknowledge it isn't going to be what most would expect. The wide-open-to-interpretation ending will please some and confound others. If you are on the lookout for something twisted, off key and original, give it a shot. Just don't expect a conventional zombie-fest.
CEMETERY MAN is an Italian black comedy zombie flick that effortlessly succeeds at being weird, bizarre, unconventional, erotic and generally unnerving throughout. It is at times crass and gross, arty and visually sensual, confusing and uneven. But it remains consistently quite compelling and utterly impossible to pigeonhole.
Rupert Everett plays the caretaker of a provincial cemetery where the dead come to life and it's his job to put them back in the ground by delivering extreme head trauma with bullet, blade and blunt instrument. Add three women in his life, played by the same actress but apparently different characters, a semi-mute and mentally deficient assistant who is in love with a talking severed head in a bridal veil, a dumb and clueless cop, a gang of biker delinquents, serial murder and the grim reaper himself. Then chuck in some metaphysical philosophy on the nature of existence and what constitutes the world, life and death, along with a dash of surrealism, a pinch of necrophilia and a large dose of graphic violence and gore and there you have it. Or there you don't exactly, because these elements only scratch the surface without touching upon the multiple undercurrents, plot threads and shrouded meanings running beneath.
It was a financial failure and critically ill-received on release. Prime cult fodder, then, and that status gave it a reputation and saved it from obscurity. Whether you enjoy it or not is in the lap of the gods. I can imagine a lot of people had their expectations subverted because without some foreknowledge it isn't going to be what most would expect. The wide-open-to-interpretation ending will please some and confound others. If you are on the lookout for something twisted, off key and original, give it a shot. Just don't expect a conventional zombie-fest.