Cemetery Man

Second Viewing
Michele Soavi
1994

Definitely one of the weirder horror flicks I've seen in it's unfocused meandering, alternately humorous and melancholic tone, and obsessively self-conscious camera moves/angles. Rupert Everett puts in a chilly performance as the eponymous caretaker of a small town graveyard - a job requiring him to bury the dead twice, once upon arrival, and again after the dead rise and are put down with a bullet to the head. The zombie makeups are only so-so, heavy on the grey pancake look, but Soavi makes up for it with some pleasantly bizarre undead encounters: an entire troupe of boyscouts, the talking/floating severed head of the Mayor's daughter, and a (literally) hellbound biker riding his trashed hog beyond the grave. The visuals are hyper-stylized and owe a lot to the mid 90's music video aesthetic. You could make a very successful drinking game out of this movie by knocking one back every time the camera peers out from inside something: a zombie's jaws, a smashed television, and the many 6-feet-deep holes. The film's unusual indulgences are primarily what make it great, particularly in the three-time resurrection of Everett's love as different women (all played by actress Anna Falchi), and the cemetery man's foray in cold blooded murder. This one's pretty damn unique.