While in undergraduate film school during the late 1990s, I had a book idea regarding the semiotics of zombie films. Primarily inspired by the work of George Romero, potential chapters would include the moral pessimism of 1968’s original black-and-white “Night of the Living Dead,” with its commentary on both the civil rights movements and the rise of youth culture; the overt critique of mindless consumerism in 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead”; and the militarization of society in 1985’s “Day of the Dead,” the third—and at that point, final—chapter in Romero’s “Dead” trilogy.

At that time, the imminent threat of a potential Y2K-instigated apocalypse received more than its deserved share of media attention, which allowed fertile grounds for Romero’s “Dead” trilogy to be revisited. Although he had continued making horror and other genre films since “Day,” none featured the undead, as Romero had supposedly sworn off any future zombie films. But considering the large-scale millennium bent that permeated through society, it made sense that Romero would revisit the shambling hordes that helped turn him from a Pittsburgh-based director of television commercials to becoming one of the most well-known icons of horror filmdom. Late 90s Internet was abuzz with rumors of a fourth Romero “Dead” film, supposedly entitled “Twilight of the Dead.”

Although Y2K may have been an appropriate zeitgeist for Romero to continue his “Dead” films after a fifteen-year hiatus, it was also difficult for me to consider any scholarly piece regarding zombie films beyond the work of Romero. This was due to the very simple lack of zombie films that also doubled as an intellectual exercise. Granted, there was the wretched excess of Lucio Fulci—who, I attempted to argue in papers I wrote at the time, took a cue from the dream-like imagery of Surrealist filmmakers in an attempt to capture the terrifyingly illogic nature of nightmares onscreen—not to mention the mid 80s “zombie revival” brought to us by Dan O’Bannon’s campy Romero homage “Return of the Living Dead.”

Now, fast-forward fifteen years, and the cultural saturation of zombies is undeniable. Besides Romero’s continuation of his “Dead” series with “Land of the Dead,” “Diary of the Dead,” and “Survivial of the Dead,” you can buy zombie band-aids, mints, and stuffed animals. Some communities and colleges even sponsor zombie runs (or walks.) The top-rated cable show is AMC’s “The Walking Dead”–based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel–which in turn has kicked off its own cottage industry of board games, T-shirts, and a non-stop presence on the comic book convention circuit. The wildly popular “Resident Evil” video game saw its initial release in 1996, leading to a series of video game titles–and a never-ending movie series–over the ensuing two decades. Although the “Resident Evil” movies (and feature-length animated films) had varying levels of success, zombies have emerged to be a top draw at the box office. This past year, Brad Pitt’s version of Max Brooks’ novel “World War Z” was an improbable box office hit, while the “Evil Dead” remake brought in $25 million on its opening weekend–or, in other words, nearly 1000 percent more than the $2.4 million unadjusted dollars that the original film earned over its entire run.

So, would the current zombie-saturated moment be the perfect setting for the “semiotics of zombies” book idea I had nearly 20 years ago? Maybe. Perhaps it would have little difficulty selling copies–anything zombie-related practically sell themselves these days. But, again, the question to consider would be the content of such a book. Do the pixelated or CGI-created zombies of Resident Evil actually represent anything other than cool-looking gruesome monsters to blow away with a virtual shotgun? Most of the symbolism of Kirkman’s “Walking Dead” is derived more from the human survivors than the hordes of “walkers.” Does Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake offer a unique twist on Romero’s mid-70s critique of mindless consumerism, or is it merely a slick-looking capitalization of a known entity?

With such a lack of readily available content for a philosophical examination of zombie films, I would instead by most interested in writing an analysis of “Cemetery Man,” a cult Italian film from the 1990s that, to me, fits the definition of a “philosophical zombie film.”

An Italian comic-book film

Quick, would you be able to name the comic book character played by both Brandon Routh and Rupert Everett? (Not Superman, obviously.) Give up? The answer is Dylan Dog, a paranormal investigator who protects the earth from invading other-dimensional demons and other creatures and the star of a popular long-running Italian comic book series.

Okay, I cheated. Kind of. This is a trick question, because all though Routh stars in the official movie adaptation ‘Dylan Dog: Dead of Night’, the main character played by Everett in “Cemetery Man” is partly based on the comic book character. This was an inspired bit of casting, as the Dylan Dog comic book character is, in turn, based on a performance Everett provided in the 1984 British film “Another Country.” However, Everett’s morose Francesco Dellamorte–the caretaker of the Buffalora cemetery where the dead have a bit of trouble staying dead–actually appears as a separate character in the Dylan Dog comic book series. So, to sum up, Rupert Everett inspired a comic book character which was in turn used as the basis for a movie character, which is in turn played by Everett, but is actually a different character from that same comic book series. Understand?

“Cemetery Man” wasn’t released in the U.S. until two years after its 1994 premiere in Italy as “Dellamore Dellamorte” (“Of Love Of Death”), and even then was a granted a limited release on the art-house circuit by distributor October Films. October attempted to gin up interest in the film with a campy marketing effort to play up the lurid associations one would expect from a zombie film–the film’s tagline “Zombies! Guns! Sex! Oh My!” could almost be used as an unironic addition to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s “Grindhouse” double feature of a few years back. “Cemetery Man” is not your typical zombie film, and the expectations created by such a marketing campaign could partially explain why it received critical initial reviews.

Still, despite its clunkiness, the campy tagline was an attempt to communicate the film’s humor, which may have been another reason the film’s poor showing. While moments of black comedy typically appear in nearly every zombie film, at the time of “Cemetery Man”’s release there had been very few zombie comedies to have found wide acceptance from the general audience. (“Shaun of the Dead” was still a decade away.) Indeed, director Michelle Soavi had been primarily best known for his horror film pedigree, having served as an assistant director to filmmaker Dario Argento–often referred to as “the Italian Hitchcock”–during Argento’s artistic peak of the 1980s. Soavi became an accomplished director in his own right, with his offerings “The Church,”about the souls of sacrificed Knights Templar causing possession and chaos in a Gothic cathedral located in downtown Rome, and “The Sect,” about a group of murderous Satan worshipers, providing favorable comparisons to Argento in the late 80s and early 90s.

But for a director who said that he wanted to challenge himself with each film that he directed, Soavi certainly accomplished that feat with “Cemetery Man”–successfully establishing himself as an auteur with a unique film-making perspective, and no longer under the influential shadow of Dario Argento.

The Living Dead and the Dying Living

It is a bit of an exercise in frustration to summarize the plot of “Cemetary Man,” not necessarily because there are any spoilers to avoid–there is no “big reveal” or anything similar–but instead, the plot is propelled by the film’s humor. And unlike high-paced American comedies that rely on slapstick, pratfalls, or witty repartee to generate laughs, the film’s humor is generated by its measured pace and Everett’s droll delivery, with spoken lines or visual clues deliver a punchline in the immediate following scene. The plot of :Cemetery Man’ is less than a narrative in its truest sense, but instead a series of vignettes interconnected by European-style humor. Little wonder the film was lauded at European film festivals, and all but ignored by American audiences.

The plot is similar to the skull puzzle that frustrates our beleaguered cemetery caretaker throughout the film, taking a concerted effort to piece together the film. One of the first images seen during the opening titles is that of a snow globe which includes two tiny figureson the edge of a cliff. As we learn later in the film, the two figures represent Dellamorte and his assistant Gnaghi (played by French musician François Hadji-Lazaro), a simple-minded creature who communicates Hodor-style with exclamations of “Gnagh!” (As Dellamorte explains: “Poor Gnaghi. On his ID card, it reads: “Distinctive marks: All.”) The snow globe–which Dellamorte absentmindedly shakes on occasion–sits on the same table besides skull puzzle, a visual nod to the film’s theme of determining the difference between the “living dead and the dying living.” While its atypical that a cemetery caretaker would be tasked with returning corpses to their casket, through his demeanor and monologues, Dellamorte betrays a viewpoint that his daily life is soul-crushing drudgery. “After all, life goes on,” intones Dellamrote while on the phone to his “only friend” Franco, a mid-level ineffective city bureaucrat, shortly after firing a bullet into the head of a zombie businessman in the film’s opening scene.

Dellamorte doesn’t understand why those he calls “Returners” climb out of their graves after several nights. (One major clue might be the cemetery’s name: Resurrectus.) Or, indeed, why they are even so anxious to return. Dellamorte determines it doesn’t matter, as putting a bullet in a Returner’s head is just part of his job. And besides, Dellamorte thinks to himself as he watches Gnaghi chase after his prized dead leaves being carried away on the wind, “We all do what we can to take our mind off living.” Immediately afterwards, however, Dellamorte is provided his reason for leaving, observing a beautiful mourner–played by the sumptuous, pouty-lipped Anna Falchi who, as a supermodel, was Italy’s answer to Cindy Crawford in the early 1990s–attend her husband’s funeral. “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” Dellamorte thinks to himself. “Well I see her again?” Why, of course he would, in the immediately following scene, with her reflection appearing in a pool. Dellamorte takes the initiative to approach the widow, only to offend her by sighing a relieved “Thank goodness” at the news her husband had been dead two weeks prior to burial. “Have you no respect for pain?” huffs the aggrieved widow before stomping out of the cemetery leaving a forlorn Dellamorte to once again wonder whether their paths will cross once more.

Dellamorte’s infatuation with the beautiful widow is understandable, but will also serve as the undoing on his sanity. Billed only as “She” in the credits, the widow is one of three iterations of the object of Dellamorte’s affections played by Falci. Of course the widow returns, and an offer to view the bones of the cemetery’s ossuary results in their first shared kiss, with both mouths wrapped by shrouds reminiscent of Magritte’s “The Lovers.” The kiss leads to a naked romp on her poor husband’s grave–”I’ve never kept anything from my husband before!”–where their passion wakes up her husband’s corpse despite the seven-night rule. A bite from the reanimated–and very jealous–corpse seemingly leads to the widow’s death. But has been well established by now, nobody ever stays dead in this film. Not even a bullet exiting the back of her head prevents the widow from returning as a rotting zombie, seducing Dellamorte from beyond the grave and taking a bite out of his shoulder in the process. Even with Gnaghi’s axe splitting her skull fails to prevent She from returning throughout the film in different guises, continuing to torment Dellamorte with results that are equal parts funny and macabre.

A subplot develops with Dellamorte’s assistant Gnaghi, who finds love–or at least infatuation–himself upon meeting the mayor’s daughter, Valentina, in a scene that captures both the film’s scripted and visual humor. “Daddy, what’s this?” asks Valentina. “It’s sweet, can you buy it for me?” Gnaghi becomes excited at this show of attention, and Dellamorte suggests she move aside in anticipation of what’s to occur. To no avail, she ignores Dellamorte’s warnings and is instead vomited upon by the embarrassed Gnaghi. As the vomit-covered Valentina falls off her chair, her boyfriend Claudio arrives on his motorcycle. “He threw up on me!” Velntina shrieks. “Cool, new fad!” responds Claudio, in one of the film’s funniest back-and-forths. “I knew you’d understand!” Valentina says, climbing onto the bike. As the bike zooms off, the mayor chuckles to his party, “The youth of today. So full of life!” Of course, this means that these youth–along with their irresponsible, joy-riding friends–won’t make it alive past the next scene, as their daredevil antics result in not only their deaths but also that of a busload of Boy Scouts on a church-sponsored outing. “They thought their life was a ahead of them, but it had already passed them by,” remarks Dellamorte as the large number of caskets make their way to the cemetery. The influx of scouts, nuns, and bikers leads to two visually memorable set pieces: the first, of Dellamorte picking off zombie boy scouts as Gnaghi stacks the body; and the second, of Gnaghi using a spade to remove Valentina’s sewed-on head from her body, resulting in her animated head moving along the cemetery’s ground as it follows a violin-playing Gnaghi back to his dwelling.

As Dellamorte’s tenuous grasp on reality continues to slip, he follows a suggestion provided by none other than Death, who tells Dellamorte that if he wants to have the dead keep from coming back to life, then he should just kill the living. His continued torment by She re-appearing in his life results in Dellamorte deciding to take out the middle man and engage in killing sprees that leave a wake of corpses throughout the small town–or does he? When he is informed by the town’s detective that Franco had confessed to his crimes, Dellamorte visits his only friend in the hospital. At the hospital, Dellamorte adds to the body count while accusing Franco of being a thief, having stolen Dellamorte’s crimes. “I don’t know who’s dead or alive,” admits Dellamorte. “I’m sick of killing. So I’m leaving the game.” Franco responds to Dellamorte’s admission with a scream of anguish and the reveal that he has no idea who Dellamorte is and that he should leave him alone. Dejected, Dellamorte walks through the chaos-stricken hospital–”You have a gun. Good! You can protect yourself!” says the detective–and returns to the cemetery. Aware that only death and killing await for him if he stays in Buffalora, Dellamorte packs his car and along with Gnaghi sets off to see the rest of the world. As they drive through a tunnel leading out of the small town, Dellamorte asks Gnaghi what he thinks the rest of the world looks like: “You’re right. It’s beyond imagination.” When they exit the tunnel on the other side, the earlier imagery alluded to in the snow globe makes sense–with the movie ending on a twist that will only lead to the audience wondering what will happen next.

Currently sitting with a 63% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, I highly recommend “Cemetery Man” for fans of zombie films or Italian giallos that are interested in something different from the same old same old. Finding a copy of the film might be difficult to fine, however. Released on DVD by Anchor Bay in 2006, it is currently out of print with new, unsealed copies available on Amazon for prices starting at $40. But any video store worth its salt, i.e. Scarecrow Video, should have a copy on hand available to rent.

Send Kyle any zombie-related questions or comments to his Twitter account, or accompany his strange adventures through pop culture via on his Tumblr page.