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Tragic Ceremony

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This is one interesting little piece of cinema. Made in 1972 (I believe) "Tragic Ceremony" is quite a disturbing film. The movie is about four young adults in the 1970s or as they were formerly labeled "hippies". The lone female of group is Camille Keaton of the cult classic "I Spit on Your Grave".

The movie opens with the quartet on rather large sailboat enjoying a lovely summer afternoon. Then these four young adults end up riding around in a dune buggy that just can't seem to hold a tank of gas. As soon as an ominous rain storm comes (aren't all rain storms ominous in these types of movies?) our youngsters take shelter in an old mansion.

Once in the mansion, Camille Keaton's character Jane is separated from the boys, via the dubious proprietors. The fellows are given their own area to dwell in, since the proprietors are being so kind to let these "kids" spend the night out of the rain. However, after a while these fellows feel something isn't right and search for Jane. Once they find Jane they detect she is part of a "Tragic Ceremony", hence the title of the film. Well I don't want to give the entire plot of this movie away, albeit it isn't the most complex story in the world and my description thus far as been paraphrased. Not to mention my omission of the McGuffin that is the pearl necklace.

This movie appears that it would be a standard Giallo (Italian mystery/thriller), yet "Tragic Ceremony" is a gothic horror movie at its best. I must confess that some of the angles, lighting and situations in this movie were very eerie and creepy. The scene where Jane is walking down a staircase with only candlelight guiding her was a very spooky occurrence. Even when the movie was over, I was mulling over what I had witnessed.

In contrast, there were some parts that I found rather, dare I say humorous. Aspects of the "Tragic Ceremony" were sort of funny. Things like body parts and large quantities of blood flying around induced and enticed my warped sense of humor. Nevertheless, this gave the movie much charm.

Dark Sky has done a good job bringing this movie to DVD. The picture is clear, as is the sound. However, it must be appreciated that this is an Italian horror movie. Therefore, the original dialect has been left. What does that mean? It translates that this movie must be watched with English subtitles. There is no dubbing in this movie. So unless you understand Italian, the subtitles are your only way to watch this film. I have watched my fair share of subtitled films and watching this flick with subtitles didn't bother me. Again, it added charm to the film.

The DVD also features the trailer/preview for "Tragic Ceremony", which I suggest watching AFTER you watch the movie. The trailer/preview pretty much shows all the best parts of the film while it simultaneously gives much of the story away. There is also an interview with Camille Keaton that was done rather recently. She speaks about some of her acting history and shares some stories about her days making movies. I found this to be really interesting and I must confess that Ms. Keaton is still a very attractive woman.

So if you are in the mood for an obscure and uncanny foreign horror film that is saturated with 70s ethos, then do yourself a favor and watch "Tragic Ceremony".

Camille Keaton, the grand daughter of Buster Keaton was barely 22 years old when she starred in Tragic Ceremony, so her sleek naked torso and pert cones looked simply scrumptious in her one prolonged topless scene. Outside of this, this movies title matched its overall quality to a T

A T for tragic.

From 1972 to 1974, Camille Keaton starred in six different Italian oddities before she was to become infamous as Jennifer Hills in I Spit On Your Grave 1978. Out of these six Eurosleaze Giallos, Tragic Ceremony is the only one to see the light of day with an actual NTSC DVD release. For the life of me, I can only hope that this is not the best of the lot.

The plot to this mess really isn't important, as it only serves as a means of delving into exploitation. This is all music to my ears, it just so happens that I truly enjoy generous helpings of gratuituos sleaze and senseless violence. The problem is, is that the waiting around for these brief moments of nudity and violence are filled with bile inducing tedium.

The film starts off funny enough, with our four hippies riding around in the open sea in a luxurious sail boat over some campy fully orchestrated Goblin rip off soundtrack, but once the dialogue starts, the rigor mortis sets in. Worse still, the only launguage option is Italian with English subtitles, so the laborious job of having to read this meaningless dialogue becomes a Buster Keaton type task of trying to muscle a two ton boulder up a sand trap. Sure, there is some sort of love triangle thing going on between two of the fellows trying to win over Camille Keaton's slinky assets, and some other incestuous yearning going on between the rich dude and his mother, but it's not nearly enough to fill the hallow vacancy of the lack of script. Even more perplexing, none of the facial expressions by the cast (especially Keaton) seems to match any of this melodrama filler. Not that I actually blame her for this, I think that like the rest of the actors, she was just doing what she was told to do. While watching this awkward excuse of a film, I can only conclude that maybe this film was never intended for an American audience. Why Tragic Ceremony was chosen out of the six features in which Camille Keaton was in good old Europe, is beyond me.

When the real violence does reveal its ugly head, it is as unbalanced as everything else in this film. During a demonic ceremony in which our nubile Camille Keaton was to be the human sacrifice, our host of high society devil worshipers suddenly start attacking one another in a rabid free for all. This whole oddball sequence reminds me all too much of Michael Findlay's The Ultimate Degenerate from 1969, except in this case, it's far less effective. The music chosen to back this action is some overly dramatic racey carnival sounding piano music, that is abruptly distracting and doesn't really match any of the action, and the fisheyed lens had the edges coated in petroleum jelly, just like in the fire poker scene of The Ultimate Degenerate. There is this one blood filled paper mache head that gets hacked down the middle by some old sword, but they overuse this cheesy effect by showing this props death a good dozen times more during the final acts many montage sequences. There is another good campy moment in which the blonde rich dude is found dead on the floor coated in the thickest blue green death make up I have ever seen. He is even oozing blue green fluid out of his open dead mouth.

When in Rome...

Other then that, the only other scene that stood out was near the end of the feature, when the winner of Camille Keaton's charms laid her down by a river during their big escape. He did this so that he could make out with her. Not exactly what I would do while fleeing for my life, but when in Rome...For a moment, they only showed Camille Keaton's eyes staring back up at him with an unnerving blankness. It is when he pulls back to take in her beauty, that we find she is missing all the flesh around her nose and mouth, revealing a death skull. This is easily the most effective scene in the film. Still, what can a person say about a film that is trying to emulate something as obscure and lowly as The Ultimate Degenerate?

This is a real shame, because I happen to find Camille Keaton very attractive. I have a this thing for skinny chicks that have a special quality that defies classical ideals of beauty. To me Camille Keaton is the cats meow. Yet, all I can say is, uless you're a die hard fan of Camille Keaton, or a collector of Eurosleaze and Giallo films, then you should steer far clear of this title. Your money would be much better served going into the bank.

This movie kept popping up in my Amazon recommendations, and from the beautifully moody and atmospheric cover art and the plot description it sounded like something I'd probably like so I decided to give it a try, but...disappointment.

The story follows three young early-70s guys and a girl as they go for a boat cruise and then chug around in their funky dune buggy. Spanish actor Tony Isbert (hey, I just saw him in "The Dracula Saga" on another new DVD the other day too) with his blonde pretty-boy looks plays the lonely rich kid whose boat it is. He's accompanied by an opportunistic manipulator who has just befriended him for his money, as well as that guy's bearded hippy sidekick. Also along for the ride is a fresh young thang played by Camille Keaton. Mr. rich kid has the hots for her, but she doesn't care and in typical free-spirited early-70s fashion thinks nothing of jumping into bed with one of the other guys whenever she has the urge.

Rich kid gives her a necklace to try and show her how much he likes her, but oops wouldn't ya know it, it's supposed to have a Satanic curse on it. Soon they are running out of gas on a remote stretch of dark road and get directed to your local neighbourhood isolated sinister mansion, which naturally just happens to house an evil cult.

I won't spoil it for you by going into any further details, but just let me say that from here on the movie just descends into pointless, STUPID violence. Now I don't mind violence in horror if it makes sense, but here it just seems that the director has made the mistaken assumption that "violence = horror". Why is it this always seems to be the problem with Italian horror? With the exception of Argento, who manages to take things to a more artistic level, the other Italian directors always seem to just go for the cheap gore and violence and take the DUMB way out. Why can't they get a better story going like in Spanish horror like Naschy?

So anyway, you are correct in assuming that I did not like this movie. Not only did I not like the story, but I was also disappointed that nowhere in the movie did the cinematography live up to the darkly gothic atmosphere shown on the box art. Overall it just looked like your typical very dated early-70s low-budget production.

In conclusion, I have no idea why some people seem to consider this film some kind of "classic". It did absolutely nothing for me.

The biggest tragedy about 'Tragic Ceremony' is the time lost watching this mess. With few minor exceptions, nothing about the film worked for me. The characters are unlikeable, the story incoherent and schizophrenic, the hand-held camerawork nauseating and the pacing terrible. The plot simply follows a bunch of young adults who run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. They happen upon a house while searching for fuel, but this was a bad choice, as the owner and its inhabitants are about to conduct a satanic ceremony. There's a subplot about some cursed pearls that only serves to confuse things even further. Additionally, nothing interesting happens for most of the movie.

By the time the four leads realize they're in danger, I was well past the point of caring. And I don't understand the reviews that praise the acting of Camille Keaton. Maybe it's a terrific performance if you consider an emotionless gaze to be acting. The three male leads are the definition of nondescript. The supporting cast includes genre favorites like Luigi Pistilli, Luciana Paluzzi, and Paul Muller, but none are given anything to do. In fact, Muller's main contribution is a brief monologue at the end of the movie that attempts to wrap-up the previous 75 minutes of tedium.

Freda apparently disowned this movie, and I certainly don't blame him. It's not listed in his filmographies, and now we know why. The film features one decent gore scene towards the end, but this is nowhere near enough considering that it takes eighty minutes of monotony to get there. I have a high tolerance for trashy Eurocult films that don't make sense - but even I couldn't recover from this one.
Tragic indeed.

This somehow odd film from Italian Cult Gothic Horror director Freda ("Dr. Hichcock") is almost unknown. Made a year after his rough Giallo "L'Iguana Dalla Lingua di Fuoco" the title suggests yet another Giallo. But, in fact, this film is not a Giallo at all - but a Gothic horror story about a cursed pearl necklace and a strange Satan's Cult which gets confronted by a hippie quartet on a day out. The story sounds unique.

Made on a very low budget, Freda made more than the best out of it and created a strange movie with all the classic Gothic elements, and also boosts a handful of astonishing gore effects that echo the rude sequences of his Giallo a year before.

The cast is lead by Camille Keaton of "I Spit on Your Grave" fame, while Luigi Pistilli delivers another neat performance as the leader of the strange Cult. The soundtrack is composed by Stelvio Cipriani and is cool as usual. A film worth looking for despite its rarity.

"Tragic Ceremony" is a little known film by Riccardo Freda (the title doesn't even appear in recent filmographies of the director). This edition on DVD has allowed me to discover a genuine masterpiece of a great italian director.