Rupert Everett

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) There’s a delicate balance between weird and too weird when it comes to horror comedies, and Dellamorte Dellamore doesn’t always get the mixture right, even if it keeps trying new things up to the very end. What starts as a zombie comedy with a jaded graveyard-keeper dealing with the undead menace as it sporadically pops up eventually becomes a disjointed, always-changing comedy of death and lust, with unpredictable plot shifts every fifteen minutes or so. The same actress plays different characters, the lead character becomes a serial killer unable to be seen as a suspect by the police, and those aren’t the weirdest things in a film that ends by questioning the identity of two characters and the very reality in which they live. It’s a lot to process if you’re paying attention (perhaps even more if you’re not), but what helps the film cohere more than its scattered parts is the strong visual quality of director Michele Soavi’s work, far more interesting than most movies of the time (and even today)—Despite the surreal nature of the script, there’s nearly always something interesting to watch, not the least of which being a quasi Bruce-Campbellian quality to lead actor Rupert Everett’s work as the graveyard keeper. The quirky humour also keeps things interesting on another register, giving Dellamorte Dellamore a far more substantial feel than emptier horror films. It’s not much of an exaggeration to pair it with something like Army of Darkness, although it’s substantially more violent and lustful than many comparable movies.