p e n g u i n d e v i l

Speaking of the dead, and the right/wrong way to do things. I have been living in a little conundrum lately. You see, 4 years ago, in the peak of my movie obsessiveness, I got a region-free dvd player, because I couldn’t exist one moment longer without those movies that weren’t released in the USA in a timely fashion. Now that that has died off a bit and, honestly, every movie that I own in a foreign format is now available domestically, so I am rethinking my need for a region-free. Also, the machine is starting to die, anyway. What this leads to, of course, is the need to evaluate whether or not I should replace all of those movies that I have in region 2 or 3 or whatever. Maybe the project should flow naturally.

For instance, this week, I found, used for $7, a dvd of the American (Anchor Bay) release of Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore). Now I have had the Italian “Medusa” dvd of this delightful film for a number of years and this American one not only has more lasting power, but it also seems to be clearer on the image quality. And what is this image? It is basically a romance, Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, a cemetery watchman who falls in love with a recent window (Anna Falchi). Once she is killed due to a tryst with him on her late husbands tomb, she has a tendency to reappear as other people. But that isn’t too surprising because in this particular cemetery, about a week after burial, the corpses come back to life and crawl out of their holes. Once this happens, Francesco has to shoot (or axe) them in their heads. He is used to this routine, going about it with his nearly mute assistant, but of course “love” rears its troublesome little head. As might expect, when the corpses come back to life so readily and have to be quickly put back down, death starts to lose some of its unique importance. So this leads to a number of deaths, both by gunshot, and spade and corpse.

It is certainly another humorous comedy splatter/zombie movie, with many corpses: Boy Scout’s, priests, you name it, being re-slaughtered. It is a lot of fun and easily a movie with much re-watching strength.

love

Death