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Cemetery Man () is a 1994 horror film directed by Michele Soavi and starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro and Anna Falchi. It was produced by Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli and Soavi and based on the novel Dellamorte Dellamore by Tiziano Sclavi. Everett plays a beleaguered caretaker of a small Italian cemetery, who searches for love while defending himself from dead people who keep rising again. It is an international co-production between Italy, France, and Germany.
The Latin inscription over the Buffalora Cemetery gate reads RESURRECTURIS ("For those who will rise again"), and indeed, some people rise from their graves as aggressive zombies within seven nights following their deaths. Dellamorte destroys these creatures, which he calls "Returners", before they overrun the town. Buffalora's mayor is so fixated on his reelection campaign that he does not register Dellamorte's pleas for an investigation. Being an outcast in the village and almost illiterate, Dellamorte does not want to lose his job. He opens up to his only friend, Franco, a municipal clerk, but does not file the paperwork to get assistance. He explains, "It's easier just to shoot them."
At a funeral, Dellamorte falls in love with the young widow of a rich, elderly man. She is won over when Dellamorte tells her about the ossuary, which she adores. While consummating their relationship by her late husband's grave, the undead partner arises and bites her. She seems to die, but the coroner claims it was a heart attack. Fearing the worst, Dellamorte stays near her corpse, and shoots her when she rises.
Gnaghi becomes infatuated with the mayor's teen daughter, Valentina, but she is tragically decapitated in a motorcycle accident. Undeterred, Gnaghi digs up her reanimated head and begins an innocent romance. The relationship is cut short, however, when the mayor finds out and Valentina rips out his throat with her teeth, forcing Dellamorte to shoot her. The young widow also rises again, causing Dellamorte to believe she was not really a zombie when he first shot her, in which case it was he who killed her. He plummets into a depression and is visited by the leering figure of Death, who tells him to "Stop killing the dead" and suggests shooting the living instead.
Dellamorte encounters two more unnamed women, identical in appearance to his now-dead lover. The first is an assistant to the new mayor. She confesses to Dellamorte that she is terrified of sexual penetration, so Dellamorte demands to have his penis removed by the local doctor. Refusing to do so, the doctor instead gives him an injection to induce temporary impotence. Meanwhile, the woman, following being raped by and falling in love with her employer, has lost her phobia. She plans to marry her rapist and discards the cemetery man.
His grip on reality slipping, Dellamorte heads into town at night and kills the punks who have made fun of him for years. He encounters a third manifestation of the woman he loves, and they go to bed together, but when he later learns she is a prostitute, he kills her and two other women by setting their house on fire. Franco is accused of these murders after killing his wife and child, and attempts suicide. Dellamorte goes to visit Franco in the hospital. Sitting by the hospital bed, he casually murders a nun, a nurse, and a doctor. Franco claims to not recognize him. Distraught and confused, Dellamorte screams out a confession, but is ignored.
Gnaghi and Dellamorte pack up their car and leave Buffalora. Gnaghi's head is injured when Dellamorte slams on the brakes. They exit the vehicle and walk to the edge of the road, where it drops into a chasm. Gnaghi begins to seize and collapses to the ground. Dellamorte realizes that the rest of the world does not exist. Fearing his assistant is dying, he loads a gun with two Expanding bullet to finish them both off. However, Dellamorte cannot bring himself to shoot his friend. Gnaghi wakes up, drops the gun off the cliff, and asks to be taken home, speaking clearly for the first time. Dellamorte replies: "Gna." As the credits roll, the camera zooms out to reveal the two men standing in a snowglobe.
Anchor Bay Entertainment released the film on R1 DVD in 2006 under the American title Cemetery Man. Cemetery Man page on Anchor Bay's website In May 2024, Cemetery Man was released on 4K-UHD and Blu-ray by boutique distributor Severin Films.
Director Martin Scorsese called Dellamorte Dellamore one of the best Italian films of the 1990s. "Michele Soavi - Filmography", New York Times
The band Slipknot directly sampled the line "I haven't got time for the living" in their song "Diluted" on their 1999 album, Slipknot.
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