Tragic Ceremony
by Riccardo Freda
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Actor: Camille Keaton, Luciana Paluzzi, Luigi Pistilli, Máximo Valverde, Tony IsbertDirector: Riccardo Freda
Brand: MPI
Cinematographer: Francisco Fraile
Editor: Jolanda Benvenuti
Producer: José Gutiérrez Maesso
Writer: José Gutiérrez Maesso
Writer: Leonardo Martín
Writer: Mario Bianchi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Dark Sky Films
Product features:
- From the twisted mind of Ricardo Freda, first Maestro of Italian Gothic Horror! Ducking out of a summer storm, four hippies (led by Camille Keaton, star of I Spit on Your Grave) take refuge in the seemingly abandoned Villa Alexander, unaware that their hosts (Twitch of the Death Nerve's Luigi Pistilli and Thunderball's Luciana Paluzzi) are staging a satanic sacrifice. When the ceremony end
DVD Reviews of Tragic Ceremony
DVD Review: Camille Keaton, One Hit Wonder.
Summary: 2 Stars
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.
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