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Stretch Reviews Cemetery Man
09/07/06
by Stretch
I should have asked a few questions when I agreed to submit a couple of columns to the DH governing board of czar-kings. When do my checks come in the mail? would have been a good one. Does this count as being published in a peer-reviewed journal? is another one I should have thought of. Lastly, I think I should have queried What the heck am I supposed to write about?
Too late now. I guess I could ask for help, but that would violate untold Maniquettes and Claynation canons and whatnot. So, in the words of Tobias, onward and upwards! Here we go…
After a few minutes of browsing the DH archives, it appears that I am in trouble. Can I write about being a grad student? Nope, Shaw owns that can of worms. How about sports? Clay’s neck of the woods. Can I rant? No, that’s DJ’s job. Can I skewer MTV? No, that would be stepping on JT’s toes.
Hmm. Perhaps I have found a niche for today. Under the tab “Movie Reviews” on the main site, there is a shortage of columns. That’s it. I will write a review.
But what if one of the Hippos is planning to write a movie review in the coming days? Wouldn’t want to steal someone’s idea for a column. Yes, the only way to be sure is to pick a movie no one would ever see on their own. I will pick a movie that is so bizarre—and yet so awesome—that only the mystical mind powers of a giraffe could truly do it justice.
*****
I give you: Cemetery Man, a 1993 Italian horror/black comedy that recently was re-released on DVD. It is at once horrible and wonderful. It is nonsensical, surreal, and yet an effectively spooky movie about existentialism. It made me howl in disbelief, and yet my eyes were bound to the screen. I could not look away. It was like watching a train wreck of two trains made entirely of candy, which exploded and covered everything with little flecks of sugar.
Cemetery Man is a movie that deserves to be watched for several reasons that have nothing to do with Anna Falchi:
This film stars Rupert Everret, who comes off looking a little bit like the
offspring of Clive Owen and a basset hound. He spends long stretches of
time gazing mournfully into the camera, surly and trembling. He also provides
the film’s narration, giving us insight into why he is so sad all of the
time. The reason he is sad is “Her” (she never does pick up
a name), the character played by Anna Falchi.
I’m angry because I am acting alongside a beautiful
woman,
and yet I am as gay as the day is long! The irony!
In a figurative sense, Anna Falchi could boil her own bathwater in this film. If I were to simply call her “hot” or “attractive”, I think I would have to retake freshman English, because she deserves much better adjectives than that. I have seen current pictures of Anna, and nowadays she has that slightly creepy plastic celebrity face, but this movie was made when she was just starting out. She looks like a young Angelina Jolie with some Dolly Parton thrown in there for good measure. I have no idea how a woman of such hottitude never became a major star in Hollywood. Then again, I have never been to Italy. For all I know, the country is full of Anna Falchis (please elaborate, DJ). In any case, Ms. Falchi soared nearly to the top of my Attractive Women I Am Not Married To List, which currently looks like this:
Anna Falchi
Anyway, Rupert meets Anna, Rupert wants to immediately lock that down, but problems arise. It seems Anna is…well…accident prone. She is also married, and more or less clinically insane, but those are minor details. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, Rupert begins to see Anna appearing in different reincarnations.
While sorting through his feelings for Anna, Rupert must deal with other problems as well. Like any good love story, Cemetery Man includes scenes of projectile vomiting, heads being squished underneath runaway buses like cantaloupes, and—my favorite—rabid Boy Scout zombies attacking a naked man in the shower and being shot in the head for it (the naked man has a gun).
Ah yes, the zombies. It seems that Rupert’s job is a cemetery caretaker, which would be hard enough if everyone stayed in their graves. They don’t, and Rupert spends his nights chasing zombies around the graveyard with a shovel, trying to coax them back into their coffins. Usually they try to kill him, and he has to lop their heads off or pop a cap in their rotting arse.
Rupert’s best day on the job occurs when Anna shows up for her husband’s funeral. She is portrayed as 18, while her dead husband is at least 100 years old. Feeling enough time has passed, Rupert invites the new widow to engage in midnight intimacies…on her dead husband’s grave. This awakens the old man’s corpse, and he pops out of the earth to attack the copulating pair, in a scene that can best be described as “awkward”.
Luckily, Rupert picks up a crucifix from one of the headstones and brains the old geezer.
The most interesting character of the whole film is the caretaker’s chubby lackey, Gnaghi. (Not to be confused with Gangy, from Arrested Development) When not helping his friend Rupert kill loose zombies, Gnaghi hides out in the cellar of Rupert’s house and watches TV. He looks like a European version of Curly from the Three Stooges except that he is mentally disabled and cannot speak. Gnaghi’s greatest ability appears to be digging graves, although he is also adept at playing his homemade violin (which has no strings). Mostly, Gnaghi just waddles around and screams “Nyah!” whenever Rupert asks him anything. Later we learn that he has a thing for underage girls, although not in a John Mark Karr sort of way. All in all, he is a stand up sort of chap, and quite the loyal friend to Rupert.
Gnaghi. May we suggest Drew Carey for the American remake?
Soon, tormented by visions of Anna, Rupert begins to lose his hold on reality…or does he? Depression sets in, and he steps up his extermination efforts. After coming totally unhinged, Rupert loads faithful Gnaghi up in the old hatchback and takes the highway out of town. This sets up an ending that might be the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed on film.
If I were to describe the ending of Cemetery Man, I would call it the collective orgasm of the past 100 years of filmmaking foreplay. It is neither good nor bad: one must not see it to believe it, because I have seen it several times and still don’t believe it. It must be seen simply to be seen, in the same way that you would stare at a tornado in the distance that is neither dangerous to you nor particularly appealing.
So there you have it.
Final Grade: A+
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