Dante’s Weekend Double: The 2nd Bite From “September Of The Living Dead” Hits A Funny Bone With ‘Cemetery Man’ & ‘Redneck Zombies’
As people continue to wipe the blood and guts off their shirts from last week’s gory double, it would be a good idea to throw some laughs into the zombie apocalypse before someone starts screaming. After all, I’m writing this on Friday the 13th, which also became known for its humor.
This week’s two chunks of chucklicious zombie bits and ludicrous gibs comes from the Boot Country and our old pals in Tromaville. Let’s grab a bite, and a few laughs. Shall we? Starting with… Cemetery Man!
Cemetery Man (1994)
The night begins with the charmingly quirky 1994 Italian horror comedy, Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore) from Giallo veteran Michele Soavi (Stage Fright, The Church), and it stars Rupert Everett (Shakespeare in Love, Stardust, Shrek 2-3).
Loosely based on the Tiziano Sclavi novel Dellamorte Dellamore and his Dylan Dog comics, Francesco Dellamorte (Everett) is the caretaker of a cemetery in a small town in Italy. He lives on the premises in a run-down shack that borders somewhere between John Rambo and the Unabomber.
Living with him is his dim-witted assistant, Gnaghi (an excellent performance by François Hadji-Lazaro), who dwells in an even more dilapidated craphole than Dellamorte (and it’s even beneath Dellamorte’s.) They are the only employees in the cemetery, and Gnaghi does all of the digging while Dellamorte just stands around brooding. This is life for the two fellows. Dig, fill, bury, and repeat.
Sounds routine enough, right? Well, there’s just one thing. The dead are coming back to life! Seven days after burial, the reanimated corpse (or corpses) crawls out of their grave, and attacks both employees.
A headshot or good bump to the noggin is enough to put them down for good, but that still doesn’t solve the problem, and they are denied relief from city officials because nobody seems to care.
Just when things couldn’t get worse, Dellamorte falls in love with a newly widowed woman. I wonder what her husband is going to say about that.
In a subgenre where finding originality is about as easy as finding MAGA people in Chicago at two in the morning, this movie flew towards the sun and its rotted wings didn’t melt off. It’s violent, weird, hilarious, and kinda sweet in some areas (and all without getting stupid).
The Gnaghi character has an innocent nature that keeps him from becoming too obnoxious, and Dellamorte looks (and acts) like that quiet Goth kid found in the back corner of every high school in the 90s. Not to mention, the Dario Argento vibe is all over this movie from all the years Soavi spent working under the legendary director. One of the better horror flicks of that decade, and best of all, it can be found for free on TUBI!
Redneck Zombies (1987)
If anybody thought the last feature was ludicrous, then get ready to roll your eyes right out of their sockets as the reigning sultans of cinematic sludge, Troma, present their terrifying terrible take on the “living impaired”. Behold: the 1987 direct-to-camcorder and then direct-to-video fan favorite, Redneck Zombies.
A movie so bad that it becomes hilarious, and then bad again. Where the last film has smarter humor, this goes in the complete opposite direction. Put on your stupid hats, city slickers, ‘cause we’re headin’ down south.
A barrel of nuclear waste gets lost while being transported by the military through the Appalachian backwoods, but when I say “gets lost” I mean that this moronic soldier puts a highly secret container of hazardous material into a damn jeep, and it dumped out of the back.
Only to be found by some dirt farmin’ good ol’ boys who use the barrel as a still for their homemade moonshine (yes, you read that correctly). They also lace their homegrown weed with it, and the combination turns everyone into zombies. A group of wandering city folk enter the equation, and these redneck zombies are ready to make ‘em squeal like a pig.
It’s like these people were dropped off in the middle of nowhere with a cheap 80s camera, no script, no acting lessons, and (since it was in Troma’s heyday) probably a lot of booze n’ blow. Half the cast is not even acting while the other half is insanely over-the-top, and making it clear who was using what.
This is PBS levels of production that almost feels like you’re watching an old movie on a super high rez TV, but only you’re not.
Otherwise, the gore is top notch and there’s particularly funny scene involving a zombie autopsy being performed by a skittish fellow who’s tripping on acid. It’s a decent one for throwing on the background during parties, and best of all, it’s currently over on Prime!
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