Dellamorte Dellamore

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
1994

Dellamorte Dellamore | Cemetery Man
Michele Soavi
ITALY, 1993
105 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Audifilm/Urania Film/KG Productions/Le Studio Canal +/Bibo TV et Film Productions
Executive Producer: Conchita Airoldi, Dino Di Dionisio
Producer: Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli, Michele Soavi
Screenplay: Gianni Romoli, based on the novel by Tiziano Sclavi
Cinematography: Mauro Marchetti
Editor: Franco Fraticelli
Art Director: Antenello Geleng
Sound: Mario Dallimonti
Music: Manuel De Sica
Principal Cast: Rupert Everett, Francois Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi, Stefano Masciarelli, Mickey Knox, Clive Riche, Fabiana Formica

If ever a film was designed specifically for Midnight Madness, this is it. A consecrated marriage of poetry and gore. A Byronic zombie tale. A fusion of comic book hip with Baroque Italian horror. Dellamorte Dellamore is all this, and much more.

Rupert Everett is Francesco Dellamorte, the caretaker of Buffalora cemetery. His only companion is Gnaghi (Frangois Hadji-Lazaro), a lame troll-like mute. Due to some strange epidemic, the dead buried in the cemetery have been coming back to life. Dellamorte must smash their skulls, either by bullet or shovel, before they can be finally laid to rest. Not an ideal situation, but tolerable until his ideal woman (Anna Falchi) appears before him, dead and alive, in three different incarnations. When Death finally advises him to start killing the living, Francesco must decide whether the job is really worth it.

Dellamorte Dellamore—the title is a conflation of the protagonist’s name with death and love—is the product of two great minds: Tiziano Sclavi and Michele Soavi. Sclavi is the author responsible for Dylan Dog, the ghoulish, hilarious Italian comic strip star, and the book on which this film is based. Two of Michele Soavi's films—The Church and The Sect—have been major hits at the Festival. Long associated with the breathtaking visuals and somewhat convoluted narratives of Dario Argento, here he breaks away from his mentor. While the film still looks incredible, Argento’s trademark saturated reds and blues are replaced by gothic blacks and browns. And the story, while still loopy, has a comic book coherence holding it together. Best of all though is Everett, his sublime deadpan calm driving the film throughout. Dellamorte Dellamore is the most promising sign yet that the recently moribund European horror scene is on its way back.
—Noah Cowan