Upsetting Day: Cemetery Man

Fat drops slide slickly down a silvery surface embedded with rainbows. Reflected in that surface is a boy, not yet a man, with a hole inside him as empty as that which punctuates this rounded mirror. That boy is me. And yet again, I fall victim to…

Imagine a zombie movie so unhinged and gnarly that it launches a legendary career. If you’re thinking of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, you are correct. Now imagine that movie’s confused and forgotten step-sibling, locked in the basement, fed on scraps of other movies, and starring Rupert Goddamn Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Napoleon, and most importantly Shrek 2).

Now you are thinking of the movie Cemetery Man, only you aren’t because no one’s ever heard of it except my Dad, who paid top dollar to import the laserdisc from Italy and thereby scar me for life for the seventh or eighth time. Consider this a catalog of those scars, as well as a throwback to a format of article we were explicitly told not to do. That’s right, it’s a damn listicle and Swaim is going full Bad Boy!

Cemetery Man is about a crypt keeper with a graveyard full of the undead who constantly require re-killing. Naturally, he never tells anyone else this is happening because apparently the salary of a groundskeeper at a cemetery is too sweet to give up. Just as naturally, Rupert spots a hottie at a funeral and realizes he must have her. It’s her husband’s funeral, so we know she’s single. He refers to her as “the most beautiful living woman I’ve ever seen,” judiciously leaving the field open for a sexy zombie to top her.

Not only does she instantly love him back, but within four minutes they are kissing in an ossuary, which is a room full of human bones. Despite this, she does have some sense of modesty, insisting they make out in classic Mormon fashion.

Two veils, no waiting! From there, it’s just a hop skip and a jump to boning on her husband’s grave, and that’s a leap Rupert is more than happy to make. Presumably they use the “soaking method,” which is when the penis is inserted motionless and you rely on the tumultuous rumblings of zombie-infested grounds to do the humping for you.

Tragically, the lovely lady in question quickly gets bitten by a zombie and dies, because if you thought Cemetery Man wasn’t about fucking the undead, you thought stupid.

Unfortunately our man is too dedicated to his calling to let a little thing like love stop him from double-killing his soul mate who he just met. When she returns looking like a disheveled mummy, she’s got to go.

Mad with grief, Rupert goes and breaks the one rule he’s lived by all these years: you kill them after they die, never before. What ensues is a Taxi Driver-esque shooting spree in town, or as my Dad called it, “an interesting sequence.”

You know you’re gonna hafta kill that nun again later, right? You’re just making more work for yourself, guy! The corpse-fucking mass murderer (AKA our protagonist) sits amid the ruins of his own poor decisions. This comprises the least disturbing aspect of the film, as you are about to learn the hard way.

Like all cemetery-dwellers and/or college superseniors, Rupert has a barely sentient roommate who spends most of his time eating spaghetti and watching war documentaries on TV. Meet Gnaghi.

Gnaghi is like if Chunk from The Goonies had a baby with Curly from the three stooges, which is a sexual union I would pay quite a bit to see. Toss in some Hodor too, since the only word he can say is “Gna.” He assists Rupert in keeping the cemetery’s denizens in a state of repose, often by splitting their heads open with a sharpened shovel. This applies to zombies up to and including a motorcycle guy whose motorcycle also returns from the dead and rockets out of its grave like a sensible plot rocketing out of this film’s script.

Because one corpse-fucker wasn’t enough to fuel the movie’s slim 84-minute runtime, Gnaghi also meets a woman and instantly falls for her, which he expresses by vomiting on her, which she - no shit - finds endearing. I guess that’s an Italian thing.

Fortunately, this minor social faux pas is quickly forgotten, overshadowed by the fact that the woman then gets her head crushed by a bus full of boy scouts who also die and must then be double-killed by Rupert and Gnaghi.

The fact that one of the dead scouts is still trying to kindle a fire by rubbing sticks together is, let’s be honest, kind of genius. Her head rebuilt, Gnaghi’s love is buried in a glass coffin so that everyone can see what a great job the coroner did assembling the jigsaw puzzle that was once her face.

When Valentina inevitably re-animates, Gnaghi decides to rip her head off her torso, stuff it in his TV, and feed it spaghetti, proving he values her for her mind and not just her (ruined, frankensteined) body.

Not surprisingly, the deceased’s father, who is also the mayor, has some questions about where his daughter’s head went.

Rupert can provide no answers.

Answers are forthcoming though, in the form of a flying zombie face that rips her dad’s jugular out like so much pink laffy taffy.

Out of non-insane options and with Rupert wanted for many, many murders, the two pals embark on an impromptu road trip only to find that their town is the only real place on earth.

Rupert explains that the rest of the world simply doesn’t exist, even though he’s standing in front of mountains and trees and all kinds of crap in the distance.

Any attempt at credulity shattered, we pan out to reveal gentle snowfall and - no shit again - that the entire movie took place inside a snow globe. If that doesn’t put this over the top as the weirdest zombie movie ever, I don’t know what will.

Oh wait, yes I do! See, despite this guided tour of Cemetery Man, we have yet to pull on the thread that left me shuddering in a pool of my own sweat for weeks after watching it: Rupert Everett’s flaccid penis.

At a certain point in the movie, Rupert runs into a live woman who looks exactly like his dead love. Who she is and how this is happening is neither explained nor explored. What is explored, thoroughly, is the fact that he’s entirely impotent. This works out great (as it usually does!) because his beloved happens to have a phobia of erect penii.

To ensure that nothing will part them again, our man then bribes a local doctor to give him a shot right down the length of his dick that guarantees he will never achieve erection again, whether by errant breeze, thoughts of better days, or brushing up against someone on the bus. Incidentally, neither will any man viewing the scene.

But oh! Cruel twist of fate! Rupert’s girlfriend arrives at the cemetery the next day to inform him that she’s been raped by the mayor, but that “she liked it.” This has not only cured her of her erection-fear, but guaranteed that this movie will be rightly banned in most civilized countries. It’s like the Gift of the Magi if one sold their penis to get the other one some shiny new testicles, and the other one sold their penis for quick cash. Speaking of quick cash, it’s at this point that the new girl reveals she’s a prostitute and expects to be paid for her services, in response to which Rupert burns her and her two roommates alive.

Or, as my Dad referred to this portion of the film, “the Birds and Bees talk.” Four out of five stars, highly recommended. Thank you father, not only for my head full of nightmares, but for my inability to relate to women generally.

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