Ritual of Death

The story of Fauzi Mansur's "Ritual of Death" concerns a teenager named Brad,who starts having some weird hallucinations about ancient Egyptian/Indian Satanic rituals.It all has to do something with some sort of a devilish book.Brad enjoys eating raw and bloody goat liver and there is a bloody bath of Brazilian babe with a severed goat head.Brad becomes possessed by an ancient spirit and goes on a bloody killing spree.Cheesy Brazilian slasher flick with lots of gore and naked female flesh.The acting is terrible and the characters are incredibly dumb,but if you are in the mood for some graphic grue "Ritual of Death" will satisfy your bloodthirst.7 goat heads out of 10.

Brazilian horror/exploitation films are most famous for the unique visions of director/actor Jose "Coffin Joe" Marin (firstly), and perhaps also the whacked-out 80's soap opera/sexploitation flicks known as "pornochachada" (a very distant second). Well, it turns out the Brazilians also made quite a few cheapo gory horror flicks back in that decade known for cheapo gory horror flicks, the 1980's. This is one of them.

The plot (wait a minute--gotta stop rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically) involves some kind of ritual human sacrifice performed for both Egyptian and South American gods. Some dimwitted theater students steal an ancient book of these rites in order to put them on as a play (they couldn't have just done "The Music Man"?). Naturally,the dark Egyptian/Latin American gods are not pleased, and all breaks loose--in the most confusing and cheap-jack way imaginable.

The only thing that really sets this apart from a ultra-cheap Americam horror film of this era is that it manages to be even more inept and certainly more non-sensical. The incredibly wooden acting is matched by the even more wooden English dubbing. And speaking of wood, the luscious "pornochchada" princess Vanessa Alves shows up in a role that consists entirely of her splashing around naked in a bloody bathtub with a severed goat's head (perhaps a waste of her talents, I'm not sure). Anyway, she's the closest thing to a name actor in this.

None of this is to say, movies like this don't have their low-rent charms. The ones here are just even more low-rent than usual.

I always had a feeling that Brazilian horror had more to offer than just the shenanigans of good 'ole Coffin Joe, but only recently did I get to experience this glorious proof of my suspicions. Ritual of Death makes a beeline straight for the most deliriously inspired of territory and more or less sticks there, seekers of sense and coherence can pretty well not bother but for fans of the kookier side of foreign trash horror, its made of win. It charts the grisly craziness that befalls when an amateur theatre group gets a hold of a translation of an Egyptian manuscript detailing sacrificial rites to the god of death, rites that have led to ghastly happenings in the past. Suffice to say, the past awakens and actor Brad starts to come under some pretty bad influence… Now the script may not make a whole lot of sense, but director Fauzi Mansur sets about business with near magical intuitions about how to keeps things awesome. The first half has more of a supernatural vibe, so we get visions, ritual sacrifice as reality, dream and theatre and a whole bunch of stuff that may or may not be real but certainly makes for fun viewing. Colorful costumes, cheap and cheery set designs, score that fixates on powerful drums, alarmed synths and rudimentary eerie tunage (kudos Michael Kelly), a sweetly overwrought atmosphere of compelling unhingement howls bug-eyed at the viewer and it's really something to behold. Mix in boobs, pus oozing decay, jump cuts to a sinister bowler hatted man and a totally off the hook bloody bathtub fornication/severed goats head love scene and you got something close to purest bliss. Unexpected toads and messy eating get in on the action too! Then as things go on, the film works in some plot developments and sidles into slasher mode, so we get some gruesome slaying as things build to the inevitable daftoid finale. Zonked out dubbing provides unintentional humour, as does what sounds suspiciously like a misplaced fart at one point and the sillier effects will surely get some giggles too. Not much to say about the acting, but Sergio Hingst is suitably menacing as the aforementioned bowler hated menace, Olair Coan is a decently distressed leading man and the women are often pretty attractive, so its all good. Its been a while since I was this entertained by a trashy horror film, all bar hardy trash fans will likely find it terrible but I straight up loved it. Obscur-amongous, but dopey and gored up trash lovers would do well to hunt this sucker out I'd say.

Raise your hand if you ever heard of director Fauzi Mansur. Anyone? Well, me neither, but this undoubtedly awesome man seemingly had a flourishing career in his native country Brazil, with lots of exploitation/thrillers during the 70s and hardcore pornography flicks during the 80s. Then, somewhat out of the blue, he unleashed two smutty splatter flicks that gained a modest but solid cult status among fans of extreme horror cinema; - your truly included!

"Ritual of Death" is insane! It's basically the epitome of bad B-horror, with a senseless plot and terrible amateur-acting, but at the same time tremendously entertaining thanks to the unhinged gore-effects, gratuitous sleaze, absurd randomness, and the misplaced song choices. My best guess is that Fauzi Mansur probably watched a lot of body-melt trash flicks and Italian splatter movies (in particular those of Lucio Fulci) throughout the 1980s, and then ambitiously gathered all his friends and family members to help realize his own dream-project. Well done, Fauzi! I hope you had as much fun making "Ritual of Death" as me and my movie-buddy had watching it.

Word of warning: the first 15-20 minutes of the film are dull, vague, slow, and inconceivable. There's overlong and repetitive footage of an Egyptian ceremonial rite, constant flash-appearances of a sinister Ray Milland lookalike, and a lecture from a daft professor. Once you struggle through this, however, the gooey madness breaks loose. The pompous producer of a theater group asks his lead actor to steal a rare manuscript from the local library, because he wants to make a stage play out of it. By doing so, the actor - Brad - becomes possessed by an evil spirit that causes his facial skin to spurt white goo and his mouth to cough up liquid Smurfs. He also uncontrollably slaughters all the members of the theater group in the most grotesquely nauseating ways imaginable. Highlights include hot (but hilariously incompetent) actresses getting smashed to pieces by a claw hammer or getting their stomach sliced open by a train wheel, and a dumb jock getting chipped by the propeller of a wind machine. There's even a guy whose eyeballs pop out of the sockets while he's being drowned in a bathtub. I didn't know that was possible, but I'm sure Lucio Fulci must have been jealous of this scene.

I'm following the same logic as my good buddy BA_Harrison here. "Ritual of Death" remains a bad film that honestly doesn't deserve a rating higher than four, but since the women are so pretty and the splatter is so darn exhilarating, I'm giving it a six. Hell yeah, I am.

saw last night and even though it evoked a mood of unknown horror it appeared mudled story wise to keep a continous attention on it for me. i liked the ritual scenes of ancient native brazilians and the semi naked gorgeous brazil women running around trying to escape the murderer but it is not enough to recommend. if anyone knows where to get older movies from FAUZI MANSUR (the director) please let me know.