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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Uninspired and slow-paced, 21 April 2005
4/10
Author: OnePlusOne from Stockholm, Sweden

This late-ish effort from Freda plays as a modern day (70's that is) Gothic thriller, but comes out short of thrills. Certainly it's not a dreadfully bad film, it's jut got that feeling which many of Freda's later films have of someone who has given up when he's seen the first daily's. It starts out good enough, almost giallo like in tone, then takes a turn into Gothic territories with a decent (albeit terribly cliché) set up. Then suddenly Freda seems to have lost interest in the film and all we get is prolonged shots of Camille Keaton and burning candles. Then circa an hour into the film we get some sort of violent climax with decent-to-poor special effects. This is followed by a slow paced outro with a very obvious twist ending (If it's even intended to be a twist?). And throw a few very halfhearted explanatory scenes along the way and you got Tragic Ceremony. Thus in parts it's got its qualities. But then suddenly stumbles and collapses in front of you. A pity.

btw stay away from the SHAROMA DVD, a useless murky pan& scan edition which kills of what could be a good visual experience.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Strange, almost unknown gem from Riccardo Freda, 21 October 2001
7/10
Author: rundbauchdodo from Zürich, Switzerland

This somehow odd film from Italian Cult Gothic Horror director Freda ("L'Orribile Segreto del Dr. Hichcock") is almost unknown and extremely difficult to find nowadays.

Made a year after his rough Giallo "L'Iguana Dalla Lingua di Fuoco" (see also my comment on that), the title suggests yet another Giallo (it means "Taken From the Secret Police Files of a European Capital" and fits perfectly into typical over long and wonderful Giallo titles like "Il Tuo Vizio e una Stanza Chiusa e Solo Io ne ho la Chiave" of the same year). 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, and the film is it, too.

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 ("Reazione a Catena") 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.

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderfully odd horror masterpiece., 15 April 2003
10/10
Author: HumanoidOfFlesh from Chyby, Poland

"Tragica Ceremonia En Villa Alexander" is a wonderfully creepy ghost story made by Riccardo Freda.Freda is the best known for his early Gothic horror movies like "I Vampiri" and "The Horrible Dr.Hitchcock".The film is well shot,with some gloomy atmospheric imagery and outrageously gory set-pieces.The acting is pretty good with Camille Keaton("I Spit on Your Grave")in the lead role.The soundtrack by Stelvio Cipriani is truly beautiful and haunting.The gore effects are pretty nasty and shocking,and the climax is truly eerie.The film is extremely rare and hard to find,so get the copy as soon as possible.The plot is as follows:a group of friends run out of gas in the middle of nowhere during the thunderstorm and find refuge in a villa.Little do they know that the owner is about to have a black mass in the basement!Soon the orgy of blood-soaked violence begins!

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
very strange but overall, not that bad, 25 May 2008
7/10
Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY

A bunch of young people get stranded at a villa in the middle of nowhere in a thunderstorm (including Camille Keaton, from "I Spit On Your Grave"). They're invited in and fed & allowed to stay, although Jane (Keaton) is given a little something to numb her out, since she's meant to be the guest of honor at a Satanic ritual of some kind. Oops. However, her friends rescue her but not until after all kind of murder and mayhem takes place at this ritual. They do manage to get away but one wonders later if they were actually alone. They flee back to the home of Bill, but his mother says the rooms aren't made up so they take off for his father's country house, where they hole up and try to decide what to do, since Bill was responsible for killing a woman at the ritual (in self-defense, but still...). However, one by one, all the men begin to die mysteriously. And Jane seems to figure in this somewhere. There's some good moments to this, and the overall atmosphere is rather strange and full of dread at times. However, some of it's just a little ridiculous, like the blue tint to one's skin when he's found dead, it's "Dawn of the Dead" blue & one expects him to rise up and eat the flesh of the living. The ending is rather strange but there's a rather lame explanation for what's taking place. Still though, it's a worthwhile and rather obscure little horror flick that has it's moments, for the right audience. 7 out of 10.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
And I was sure this movie would work for me, 22 February 2008
3/10
Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

On the way home from a day at the beach, four young people seek shelter from a torrential downpour at the home of Lord and Lady Alexander after their car runs out of gas. They don't know it, but the house they're staying in is to be the site of a Satanic ritual. Jane (Camille Keaton), the only female of the group, is to be sacrificed. As her male companions rush to her aid, one of them accidentally kills Lady Alexander. Things really get out of hand and everyone else attending the black mass is also killed. The four try to make an escape, but soon discover there's no escape from what they've witnessed. One by one, they meet their fates.

Gong into Tragic Ceremony, I was positive I would enjoy it. Slow-burn Gothic horror is right up my alley. I'm also quite fond of some of Riccardo Freda's other movies like The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, The Ghost, and I Vampiri. Tragic Ceremony seemed to be a sure thing. Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way they should. The biggest tragedy with respect to Tragic Ceremony is the time I spent watching this mess of a movie. With a few minor exceptions, nothing about the film appealed to me or worked for me. The characters are unlikeable, the plot is incoherent and schizophrenic, and the pacing is terrible. There's a subplot about some cursed pearls that goes nowhere and only serves to confuse things even further. In addition, 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 I've read that praise the acting of Camille Keaton. I suppose it's a terrific performance if you consider an emotionless daze to be acting. The three male leads are the very definition of nondescript. They do nothing to stand out. The supporting cast includes some genre favorites like Luigi Pistilli, Luciana Paluzzi, and Paul Muller, but none is given anything to do. In fact Muller's main contribution is a two minute long monologue at the end of the movie that attempts to explain what happened in the previous 80 or so minutes. It's a weak attempt to provide a wrap-up to a very weak movie.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
This "Tragic Ceremony" Casts a Wicked Spell, 15 February 2008
7/10
Author: Jonny_Numb from Hellfudge, Pennsylvania

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Few international starlets have gained as much notoriety from such a limited filmography as Camille Keaton, and not without due cause: "I Spit on Your Grave" was made a must-see cult favorite by the condemnations of Siskel & Ebert, while her other films have remained in relative obscurity. "Tragic Ceremony" is an early Keaton offering, an Italian-made mindscrew that takes aim at the '60s hippie culture and the eccentricities of the bourgeoisie, while crafting a fairly suspenseful, surrealistic tale in the vein of Roman Polanski's "paranoid-apartment-dweller" trilogy and the art-drenched works of Mario Bava. The ringmaster of this free-association nightmare is Riccardo Freda, who uses a lot of avant-garde techniques (the shaky-hand-held motorcycle ride; the wide-angle 'ceremony'; low angles and long shots) to establish a purposely inconsistent mood--it's a disorienting experience that uses a cliché setup (freewheeling hippies vacationing in the country run afoul of rich Satanists) to subvert our expectations time and again; the 'climax' seems to occur midway through, and just when we wonder where else the story could possibly go, Freda extends his creepy surrealism right up to the end (even if the final scene is marred by an overly awkward explanation that isn't really necessary). Even the violent moments (while clearly the product of a low budget) transpire in a style that exists somewhere between reality and the exaggeration of a dream. And, of course, Keaton is wonderful to watch, possessing the kind of understated demeanor that made her signature performance in "I Spit" so memorable. Now that it's on DVD, there's not excuse for any fan of Euro-horror to miss this "Tragic Ceremony."

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Atmospheric Gothic horror with a hypnotic feel to it, 3 January 2008
8/10
Author: alphaboy from Austria

The plot follows a group of hippies, who start out on a yacht, camp at the seaside, then take a stylish yellow car (which looks a bit like a dune buggy) and soon enough run short of gasoline. They end up in an old mansion during a thunderstorm. The inhabitants celebrate a black mass including a human sacrifice. A cursed necklace is somehow involved as well. People start getting killed most violently... But we're only half way into the movie!

The story turns out to be more or less conventional, though there is a lot of mystery to it right until the doctor (played by Jess Franco regular Paul Muller) 'explains' everything in the end; his mad stare closes the film. But the movie's impact certainly does not depend on the script, which is little more than adequate.

However, it sports lush cinematography and a 'romantic' piano and organ score by Cipriani (of which, however, some passages are used just a little bit too often), and there are memorably eerie performances by Tony Isbert as the strange son of a rich mother and Camille Keaton as the sexy girl in this hippie quartet: there's a topless scene in the bathtub, and she keeps switching partners in the movie, even getting some lesbian attention (innuendo...) from ladylike Paluzzi, who plays the mysterious Lady Alexander at the core of the movie. (Bond lovers may recognize her as the bad-girl 'Fiona Volpe' from 'Thunderball'.)

In the horror department, we get some well-made splatter effects (beheading, split cranium etc.) that are well integrated into the general mood of the film. The tension is well kept throughout.

Besides, the film is extraordinarily well paced, if slow, and can thus develop a strong hypnotic effect on sympathetic viewers.

I'll certainly come back for a second viewing, if not more.

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2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Camille Keaton and Some Italian Guys, 13 March 2008
5/10
Author: Gavin Schmitt (gavin6942@yahoo.com) from Kaukauna, Wisconsin

Camille Keaton (best known for "I Spit on Your Grave") stars as Jane, one of four young people who run out of gas and are forced to spend the night at Lord Alexander's mansion. But Alexander and his wife are into some diabolical games -- Jane is hand-picked as a "virgin sacrifice". A ruckus ensues and the second half of the film has the gang of four trying to hide from police when they feel they might be implicated i na murder.

This film, more properly titled "From the Secret Police Archives of a European Capital" is considered by some to be a cult classic. I don't know why. It has some things going for it -- Camille Keaton, who is alluring in a strange way (she shouldn't be attractive but in some scenes has such an innocent face). Some of the deaths are incredible, such as a head split in two (though this is diminished when they flash back eight times). And the makeup is astounding, particularly on Camille later in the film (I won't give this away... wait for it).

But, overall, the film is nothing special. The camera work is awful ("shaky cam" all the time), the editing is very rough, with cuts tat don't line up right. And other than five minutes at Lord Alexander's mansion and the last few minutes, it's a boring plot. Mostly just kids sitting around and we're not really told their relationship to each other (Jane seems to be dating all of them). Oh, and plot holes. Who is the mysterious man at Bill's mother's house? What's the story with the pearls? Even the "twist" revealed later on has some hard-to-believe elements in it. Maybe I need to see it again, but I found most of this to be just a bit bland.

The best and worst of the film is with the gas station attendant. On the plus side, we have a gas station encounter leading to a murderous house. I have often given "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" credit for starting this trend, but this film has a contentious claim to it as well. Someone should explore the history of this more. Why is this also the worst? Because the attendant is said to be "a relative of the devil" or "a ghost" but this is never explained. If the writer of this film lives, I need to track him down and beat him until he gives me answers.

After these complaints, you'll be surprised to see me saying that you should see this film. But, if you like "cult films", Camille Keaton, old Italian movies or the 1970s approach to horror, this is a good title to be aware of. I do think it deserves a second chance from me... Oh ,and don't try to play the smoking game to this one (smoking whenever characters smoke) because you'll lose.

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4 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Someone got 'Tragic' mixed up with 'Tedious'!, 23 January 2007
3/10
Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

Riccardo Freda may have a good reputation; but since we now that many of his best films were, in fact, directed by the late great Mario Bava; it's clear that he wasn't one of Italy's most gifted filmmakers back in the seventies. This film pretty much proves that as despite the simplistic plot; it's a sprawling mess and overall, I'd even have to go as far as to say that Tragic Ceremony is WORSE than Freda's insipid Giallo effort, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire. Freda apparently disowned this movie, and I certainly don't blame him! The plot simply follows a bunch of kids that run out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. They happen upon a house while searching for fuel; but it turns out to be a bad choice, as the owner is just about to conduct a satanic ceremony...ho hum. The film features a lead role for Camille Keaton, who would go on to star in the exploitation classic I Spit on Your Grave some years later, but fails to make an impression here despite acting alongside a cast of talentless performers. The film features one decent gore scene towards the end, but this really isn't enough considering that it takes eighty minutes of tedium to get there. I have a high tolerance for rubbish Italian films that don't make sense - but even I couldn't stand this one. Miss it, miss nothing!

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