Dellamorte Dellamore

Michele Soavi’s weird, haunting masterpiece, based on a novel by Tiziano Sclavi, creator of the ‘Dylan Dog’ comic books.

There is a knock at the door. Francesco Dellamorte goes to answer, but not before arming himself with a revolver. Standing there is Chigini, the recently deceased town surveyor, with a suitcase in hand as if he had come to stay for a few days. Dellamorte promptly shoots him in the head and closes the door. “Life goes on,” he says sadly.

Deserving of mention alongside George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 as being one of the very best zombie films ever made, Dellamorte Dellamore is an existential horror film with a dark sense of humour Although successful in Italy, Dellamorte Dellamore suffered from poor international distribution. Re-titled Cemetery Man for its US release it played on a handful of screens before trundling out on video. In the UK it briefly appeared as a rental, but has suffered the ignominy of never getting a retail video release, or as yet a DVD release.

Francesco Dellamorte, watches over the cemetery in the small town of Buffalora. Dellamorte has an unusual problem, the dead are refusing to stay dead. Dellamorte has no interest in finding out why they are coming back. Indeed, he is baffled by why anybody would want to come back. Dellamorte is a misfit. Nobody really listens to him. The little old lady who visits the cemetery every day calls him Engineer, even though as he keeps explaining he is not one. The mayor is politely inattentive, praising Dellamorte’s work, while paying no attention to what he has to say. A group of young locals mock him for his rumoured impotence, although Dellamorte later admits he started those rumours himself to be different. He has only two friends, Gnagi his assistant, who can only communicate by grunting, and Franco, a clerk at the post office in the village.

Reclusive, while also longing to escape from Buffalora, Dellamorte’s closed-in world is thrown into crisis when he is drawn towards a beautiful young widow. She is never named, but She is played by the model-turned actress Anna Falchi. She has no interest in Dellamorte until he shows her the Cemetery’s Ossuary and it arouses her. Unfortunately their tryst is interrupted by her dead husband, whose bite seemingly causes her death.

Unusually for a horror-comedy with gore and sick humour, Dellamorte Dellamore takes loss and grieving quite seriously. Sure, there’s exploding heads and killer dialogue and Rupert Everett bludgeoning a zombie-nun’s head in with a blunt object, but there is a mournful aspect to the film. Everybody has lost or loses someone. Dellamorte’s descent into psychosis is triggered by the accidental killing of a young woman as she has an intimate moment with her zombie-biker boyfriend. It is a scene that turns from black comedy, to horror, to pathos, as Dellamorte is unable to persuade her to move away so he can get a clear shot at her un-dead lover. When he does fire, the bullet goes right through the biker’s head and hits the girl between the eyes. Dellamorte is horrified, aware that while nobody will mind him shooting the dead, there are very serious consequences for those who kill the living. Soavi cuts to a close-up of the girl, as a tear falls down one side of her face.

Dellamorte Dellamore operates on the same level as a fairytale, or a dream, in which strange happenings are possible, but they have a deeper psychological meaning that is open to interpretation. Death appears to Dellamorte, taking form out of burning rubbish on a bonfire and asks Dellamorte to leave the dead alone. Given that the ‘Dylan Dog’ comic books take place in a world where reality and the supernatural exist side-by-side it is entirely feasible that Death does visit Dellamorte. However, it could also be that Dellamorte is losing his mind. Falchi appears again playing two different characters, the new mayor’s assistant and a college girl moonlighting as a prostitute, but we are never quite sure if Dellamorte is imagining this, or whether as both women suggest they have some connection to him already.

Rupert Everett gives arguably his finest performance. Sadly it is a performance few people have seen in a world where Shakespeare in Love wins Academy Awards. Even Everett undersells it, his only mention of Dellamorte Dellamore in his autobiography ‘Red Carpets and other Banana Skins,’ is a small photograph. A shame then, for he is brilliant here, making Dellamorte a sympathetic, funny character, despite his descent into murder.

Dellamorte Dellamore may have never been released in the UK on DVD, (so far), but it is well-served online with four releases available from either Italy (recommended), Germany, Spain (under a title that apparently translates as ‘My Girlfriend is a Zombie), and an R1 US release under the title Cemetery Man.

About Michele Soavi

Soavi started out as an actor, before moving behind the camera to work as an assistant to Dario Argento on Phenomena. After directing a documentary about Argento he graduated to making features. Soavi’s films tend to present corruption in high places, while his sympathies are with those who find themselves as outsiders, or are set apart in some way. Stagefright (1987) is a slasher film set in and around a theatre as a homicidal maniac dressed as an owl runs amok. Beautifully shot, if a little incoherent, it showed enough promise to get Soavi a gig working for Terry Gilliam on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Argento produced The Church (1990). Beginning with Teutonic Knights massacring a village, burying the inhabitants in a huge pit then switching to the present as refurbishment on a church built upon the site unleashes their vengeful spirits. The Sect (1991) has some of the most beautiful images you’ll ever see in a horror film. A woman finds out she is carrying the Anti-Christ and tries to flee from a group of his followers. It’s effective, if still a little incoherent, but rather sweetly it suggests that even the Anti-Christ loves his mother. Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) is an adaptation of a novel by Tiziano Sclavi featuring Francesco Dellamorte, a character who briefly appeared in Sclavi’s ‘Dylan Dog’ comics. Incidentally Dylan, the Nightmare Detective is rumoured to be appearing in a film starring Brandon Routh. After a timeout for family reasons, Soavi began directing films for TV, but still brought a cinematic feel to Uno Bianco (2001) about a real-life incident in which two small-town Italian cops brought down a brutal gang of armed-robbers and Francesco (2002) about St Francis. In 2005 he renewed his acquaintance with Terry Gilliam, by working as a second-unit director on Brothers Grimm. Arrivederci Amore Ciao (2006) was Soavi’s first cinema feature in 12 years and is a suitably stylish thriller with an exiled political terrorist, returning home to Italy and using crime to fund the lifestyle he wants for himself. All are worth a look.

Thanks to Kevin Sturton for this review