Tragic Ceremony/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Tragic Ceremony
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Four young friends, Jane (Camille Keaton), Bill (Tony Isbert), Fred (Giovanni Petrucci) and Joe (Maximo Valverde) take a boating trip. After they return home, they need to find a place to stay for the night, the only problem is, their jeep has run out of gas. They stop at a gas station but Bill has forgotten his credit cards, and the old gas station attendant only gives them enough to get to a local mansion where they can get more. The group make it to the old mansion and they are greeted by a strange man named Lord Alexander (Luigi Pistilli). Things begin to get strange when the Lord's wife, Lady Alexander (Luciana Paluzzi) shows up. She takes Jane with her, and tells her to take a bath while the three guys wait and have something to eat/drink. Pretty soon Jane is in the bath (looking very sexy). Meanwhile, Lord Alexander, his wife and their other guests are holding a satanic ceremony, complete with chanting and organ music. When Jane hears the chanting/music she becomes entranced and moves towards to room where its being held. When she makes herself known, the group have her lay down in the middle of the room. Not good! Before Lady Alexander can sacrifice Jane with a large knife, Bill shows up and stabs Lady Alexander, killing her. The entire group of satanists including Lord Alexander go batso, they pick up swords and other weapons and slice and dice each other up in a kind of suicidal pact. One guy gets his head sliced in half (nice FX!), another gets it chopped right off. The heads roll...literally!

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Now that Bill has saved Jane's life, the group take off out of there fast. Along the road, two policemen show up and the group quickly get rid of them by acting like lost tourists. They stop at Bill's mom's house and they ask her if they can stay but she lets them know its not going to happen. So she tells them to go stay at Bill's dad's hunting lodge. When they arrive at the lodge they find the doors locked, so they just bust it down and go in to relax. The group know theyre in trouble when they turn on the TV news and find out the mansion massacre has been discovered and that "a group of young hippies" are suspected of the gruesome crime which the authorities think was inspired by The Manson Family killings from a year or two earlier in the US.

The horror continues when Bill is found dead upstairs looking like one of George Romero's blue zombies. The group are REALLY freaking out now. What's the cause of this? Who will die next? The Tragic Ceremony has just begun!!


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Peter Roberts is the co-founder/editor-in-chief of the Grindhouse Cinema Database (GCDb) and contributor to the GCDb's sister site Furious Cinema. A Massachusetts native, he is an avid film fan that has been immersed in the world of entertainment and pop culture his entire life. He is a professional digital media designer and educator.

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