Tantalizing ‘Man’ Is Full of Surprises

Just a couple of seconds into Michele Soavi’s deliriously original horror picture “Cemetery Man,” Rupert Everett, in the title role, nonchalantly shoots an unexpected visitor right in the face. As caretaker of an ancient cemetery in a sunny, picturesque Italian town, Everett’s Francesco Dellamorte has a little problem: A week after burial his corpses tend to rise from their graves. Only when shot in the head or after their heads have been cleaved with a sharp blade will they stay put.

This keeps Francesco and his mute, hefty assistant Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro) pretty busy, but Francesco, a high school dropout, feels lucky that he has a job and a rent-free cottage. He soon feels even luckier when he and a gorgeous young widow (Anna Falchi) make passionate love on her elderly husband’s grave--that is, until the old guy rises from it to shock his wife to death or so it seems. Now Francesco is faced with the first of an avalanche of dilemmas that threaten to engulf him when he wonders whether he can bring himself to shoot his lover to prevent her from becoming a zombie like all the others.

“Cemetery Man” is movie full of surprises. It begins as a droll Grand Guignol comedy, but Soavi, a protege of Terry Gilliam and of Italy’s master of the macabre Dario Argento, catches us by surprise by how serious his picture becomes. As Francesco’s experiences become increasingly confounding, the film emerges as a meditation on the paradoxical relationship between life and death, playing the elusiveness of love and sexual desire against the certainty of dying.

“Cemetery Man” becomes a tantalizing philosophical riddle, and while Francesco says he never even finished the one book he ever started to read, Soavi was wise to cast Everett, who can be as passionate intellectually as he is emotionally. (Indeed, Tiziano Sclavi, who created the “Dylan Dog” comic series upon which the film is based, reportedly asked the illustrators of his series, immensely popular in Italy, to model their hero on Everett’s appearance.)

In any event, “Cemetery Man” affords the versatile, risk-taking Everett one his most challenging roles. Most recently, he’s been seen as the paunchy, scheming heir to the British throne in “The Madness of King George” and the foppish, arrogant villain in “Dunston Checks In.”

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Here, he’s a sexy, well-built, easygoing type who proves capable of comprehending the complex and contradictory moral implications of the bizarre supernatural events that soon overtake him. Everett carries the film, as his role dictates, but he gets a strong assist from Hadji-Lazaro as the loyal, naive Gnaghi, a figure of pathos, and from the radiantly lovely Falchi, one of Italy’s most famous models, who winds up playing three different roles.

“Cemetery Man” has a great look and sound--Manuel De Sica’s score has a sinister insistence. Francesco winds up wondering whether it’s better to be dead or alive--and leaves us to consider that it may be harder to tell the difference than we think.

* MPAA rating: R, for macabre violence and gore, strong sexuality and some language. Times guidelines: The film’s rating is accurate, and therefore it is not for children even if accompanied by an adult.

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‘Cemetery Man’

Rupert Everett: Francesco Dellamorte

Francois Hadji-Lazaro: Gnaghi

Anna Falchi: The Three “She’s”

An October Films release of a co-production of Audifilm/Urania Film/KG Productions/Le Studio Canal Plus/Bibo TV ET Film Productions with the participation of Silvio Berlusconi Communications. Director Michele Soavi. Producers Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli, Soavi. Executive producers Conchita Airoldi, Dino Di Dionisio. Screenplay by Romoli, based on the novel “Dylan Dog” by Tiziano Sclavi. Cinematographer Mauro Marchetti. Editor Franco Fraticelli. Costumes Maurizio Millenotti. Music Manuel De Sica. Set designer Antonello Geleng. Mechanical special effects Sergio Stivaletti.. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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