Michele Soavi Wyman. He directed his first feature film with 1987's "Stage Fright" for producer Joe D'Amato. He worked as assistant director to Terry Gilliam on "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" in 1988, and followed this with his second feature film as director, 1989's "La Chiesa" ("The Church"). His third feature, "The Sect" (a.k.a. "The Devil's Daughter"), followed in 1990. Soavi has been credited as almost single-handedly continuing the traditions of Italian horror in the 1990s, directing the acclaimed zombie love story "Dellamorte Dellamore" (a.k.a. "Cemetery Man"). The film was based on Tiziano Sclavi's novel of the same name, and the author
Baron Munchausen the main audience for the stories. The book, especially in its adaptations for children, remained widely popular throughout the century. It was translated into nearly all languages spoken in Europe; Robert Southey referred to it as "a book which everybody knows, because all boys read it". Notable later translations include Gautier's French rendering and Korney Chukovsky's popular Russian adaptation. By the 1850s, "Munchausen" had come into slang use as a verb meaning "to tell extravagantly untruthful pseudo-autobiographical stories". Robert Chambers, in an 1863 almanac, cited the iconic 1792 illustration of the Baron by asking rhetorically: Though Raspe's book is no