Cinema Egzotik: Cemetery Night

Don’t think the dead will be lying meekly in their graves in this last but one episode of Cinema Egzotik, Home of the Weird & Wicked. Each in their own way, cult veterans Dan O’Bannon and Michele Soavi have created a wonderfully haunting, sexy, grungy and humoristic ode to the zombie film. With lots of chopping and cleaving, racy sex on graves, plus reflections on mortality, no less.

The Return of the Living Dead

Dan O'Bannon 1985 US 91” English spoken, no subtitles

There”s a mysterious set of drums labelled “military property” in the basement of a warehouse. One of the warehouse overseers claims the drums contain “pickled zombies”, proof that the classic horror film Night of the Living Dead wasn”t fiction after all. Then one of the drums is accidentally opened – how very convenient, plotwise, that the warehouse is next to the graveyard.

Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore)

Michele Soavi 1994 IT 105” English spoken, no subtitles

Francesco Dellamorte – what”s in a name? – is a a cemetery manager in charge of the dead, only they refuse to behave and keep climbing out of their graves. The only way to deal a death blow to these troublesome zombies is to crack their skulls. An unnamed widow (Italian model Anna Falchi) visits the grave of her deceased husband and is intrigued by Dellamorte”s behaviour. She decides to have sex with him on her husband”s grave. Definitely not a very good idea…