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Tragic Ceremony
[Dark Sky Films]
1972; color
Directed by Riccardo Freda
Starring: Camille Keaton, Tony Isbert, Maximo Valverde, Luigi Pistilli, Luciana Paluzzi, Jose Calvo, Giovanni Petrucci, Irina Demick & Paul Muller
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Today's subject, Tragic Ceremony (also known, in Italy, as Estratto Dagli Archivi Segreti Della Polizia Di Una Capitale Europea and released in Spain as Trágica Ceremonia En Villa Alexander) has garnered a bit of a cult following over the years. Due, in part at least, to it's unavailability; or so I assume. It certainly isn't because of the cohesive, linear, well thought out plotline. (Honestly there were times I was contemplating turning off the English subtitles and making up the story in my head as we went along. I think it would have made more sense that way.) One other annoying aspect of watching this was, my copy was kind of defective in some way causing it to stop and start playing abruptly in key scenes around the time the four hippies were holed up in the rich boy's father's abandoned non-bachelor pad trying to recover from, and evade being blamed for, the mass gory death they witnessed when they stumbled upon a Satanic mass at the stranger's pad they crashed at the previous night. (You know how transient rich hippies can be.) Although in actuality the rich guy only stabbed one Satanic broad in the gut - kinda sorta in self-defense; really, in defense of the blond girl - inspiring the rest of the Satanists go completely batshit and kill each other. Oh wait... I haven't even mentioned the hippies yet. Which means I definitely haven't mentioned the Satanists yet. (Again, talking about things out of order wouldn't necessarily be out of order in this case.) To backtrack to the film's opening, we meet a group of care free hippies - three appropriately greasy Euro studs and one appropriately straight haired Aryan looking chick - while they lounge on their sailboat. Or someone's sailboat. (Like many of the "facts" contained herein I'm a bit unclear on that.) At any rate, then they sail themselves over to a campground where they had already set up camp. Or then decide to set up camp. (See last aside.) While they're stationed in the wild, the guitar playing guy passes the time playing his guitar and the rich guy attempts to woo the blond, only to be cockblocked by the guy whose shirt doesn't button. Shortly after this, they jump in their dune buggy and take off for parts unknown. To me. (And, hello - where did the dune buggy come from?) Then they run out of gas and get caught in a storm. Or maybe they got caught in the storm first and then run out of gas. No, hold on, they must have run out of gas first, because that's the excuse to add in the "mysterious" gas station attendant. At any rate, I think we've all seen enough horror movies to know what happens to a group of non-teenaged teenagers who wind up stranded in the rain with no place to sleep. If not, you can infer what happens from the earlier part of my review where I mention them spending the night in a castle that just so happens to also be hosting a Satanic mass. Ultimately this series of unfortunate events leads our heroes and heroine to another unfortunate series of events, and ultimately, the end of the film. Which didn't make much more sense than what came before it, but does have a bit of a swerve at the end which wraps everything up in a neat, albeit nonsensical, little package. As far as extras we get a brief interview with Camille Keaton, who plays the blond hippie girl and who was last seen on the Buffet playing Solange in What Have You Done To Solange? (She was also in I Spit On Your Grave but I've never seen that.)
—Bunny
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