31 Days of Horror: Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

Here's a real treat for you. Imagine George A. Romero directed spaghetti westerns. You'd get this. Dellamorte Dellamore or Cemetery Man is an Italian made zombie film that horrifies and entertains.

Rupert Everett is Francesco Dellamorte, a guardian of a cemetery in a little town in Italy. Corpses rise from the grave on the seventh day for reasons the audience is never sure why. Dellamorte must destroy them. Along with his and monosyllabic helper Naghi, Dellamorte takes a philosophical approach to his fate.

Everett is remarkable in such a darkly weird role. From the moment he steps out of the shower to answer the phone and kill a zombie with a gun shot, you realize there's more to this zed film. That is just the beginning of conversations with death, exploding heads, twisted love and madness.

Top-notch camera work and nicely constructed gore build on the solid foundation provided by the brilliantly written and directed screenplay. This is an eccentric, but quite effective film, Dellamorte Dellamore is part campy gore/part art house. Italian director Michele Soavi has created something fresh, macabre and surreal.

Dellamorte Dellamore may be a cinematic oddity, but it is one worth exploring.