CEMETERY MAN

Francesco Dellamorte is the gravedigger of the small cemetery of Buffalora and, together with his deaf-mute assistant Gnaghi, spends his nights killing the dead, the "returners" who, after a few days of stay in the cemetery, somehow, resurrect. When Francesco's lover will die, the young man will not feel like eliminating her and from that moment the troubles will begin... Probably the most personal film by Soavi, who, free from Argento's influence, directs a gothic work in which symbolic and metaphysical aspects (Death, the tunnel, the unknown...) play a central role. What could have been resolved in yet another zombie story becomes, thanks to Soavi's artistic sensitivity, a surreal tale, a sort of "romantic horror" but, at the same time, also a clear act of accusation against a society that pushes us to live like zombies, in a daily life where it is increasingly difficult, as happens to the film's protagonist, to distinguish the living from the dead. The film, however, also presents a couple of glaring limitations: first, some not entirely successful special effects (the personification of Death, the plastic fly that hovers over the sculptural body of Falchi...) and then the choice of the cast that, apart from the two excellent protagonists Everett and Hadji Lazaro, leaves much to be desired. The film is the cinematic adaptation of an eponymous story by Tiziano Sclavi and is not based, as is often incorrectly stated, on the Dylan Dog comic by the same author. In short, a film to promote, if only because it is one of the few horror films directed and produced in Italy in recent years!