Cemetery Man (1994)

Directed by Michele Soavi. Starring Rupert Everett, Anna Falchi, François Hadji-Lazaro, Fabiana Formica, Stefano Masciarelli, Anton Alexander, Mickey Knox, Clive Riche. [R]

Cult horror-comedy item casts a deadpan Everett as a cemetery caretaker whose last name (Dellamorte) means “of the dead”—no job aptitude test needed for this fella! His bleak, sardonic personality serves him well when he has to take care of pesky zombies who occasionally rise from their graves about a week after burial. Ripe with weird and dark laughs, icky makeup, metaphors, nudity (courtesy of buxom Falchi, who plays three roles), and philosophical subtext, but the movie is all over the map, suffering from incoherent storytelling and macabre direction that could really use a jolt of energy from time to time. Changes directions on a couple of occasions, an episodic quality that’s fitting since it’s inspired by a comic book called “Dylan Dog” (although officially adapted from a novel by the same author, Tiziano Sclavi); peters out a bit in the third act as Dellamorte takes Death’s advice and starts killing the living instead, but the conclusion is fascinating. “Dylan Dog” was later directly adapted into a 2011 film (Dylan Dog: Dead of Night).

65/100