Ritual Macabro

Mayan horror movies don't exactly come in spades, so it's always interesting to dive into one. Even if it's such a ridiculous affair like "The Laughing Dead". Some priest - currently in conflict with his own faith because he impregnated a luscious nun once - organizes an excursion towards the Mexican boarder to introduce a varied bunch of travellers to some ancient Mayan festivities. The first half of the film mainly consists out of dull character drawings and some inexplicable nightmare sequences. Then, once arrived at the small Mexican village, things start to get amusing as the group encounters some evil Mayan doctor who loves to sacrifice kids to some ancient Death God in order to inherit the powers of The Bloodstar. Or something, 'cause it's all a heap of nonsense anyway. Now, the main reason to watch The Laughing Dead is for the special effects by Magical Media Industries (featuring one John Carl Buechler in their ranks). They manage to concoct several awesome effects & gory killings... There's a bit of demonic possession. A woman rips open her naked chest and tears her own heart out. A guy gets crushed by a bus. Another dude's head gets decapitated & used as a basket ball. The best kill is probably that of one guy who's arm gets ripped off and shoved down his own throat. During the movie's climax the undead come stumbling around and two people even magically transform into two giant, dinosaur-like monsters & proceed to duel each other. You won't hear me labeling this a 'good movie', by far not, but it sure is a fun, demented ride.

Faith-losing Father O'Sullivan (Tim Sullivan) takes a bus of folks down to some visit some Aztec ruins. Also along for the ride are Tessie (Wendy Webb), his former nun love that he got pregnant, and her foul- mouthed son Ivan (Patrick Roskowick), who is O'Sullivan's illegitimate son. It all makes for perfect timing for some sort of sacrifice to the Blood Star for evil Dr. Um-tzec (writer-director-composer S.P. Somtow). This film gained some notoriety back in the day thanks to a gore-filled spread in (naturally) Gorezone. And while the film looks great in stills, it has many, many problems unspooling at regular speed. Somtow certainly doesn't lack creativity, but his staging and pacing leave a lot to be desired. He will have bits like the trapped characters seeing two people squashed to death by a bus, but they will act like nothing is wrong in the next scene. And there is some REALLY bad comedy going on here. The acting (most of the talent are Somtow's writer friends) leaves a lot to be desired too and the film offers quite possibly one of the worst child performances ever captured on film by Roskowick. When on, the film is pretty fun with some great make up work by John Buechler's MMI company. Interestingly, despite have a wealth of gore, this film is still unreleased in the United States.

Christian fell asleep...Hell, I was in it and *I* fell asleep. As Ms. Kelleghan states, most of the actors were not actors, we were writers who knew Somtow and were invited to play characters, some of which he named after us (Ray Ridenour's character is named "Dozois", because award-winning sf writer/editor Gardner Dozois was originally slated to play the part). Me, I channeled equal parts of Roddy McDowell and Thurston Howell III; but Ed Bryant (damn his eyes) stole the movie simply by being Ed. Nobody could top the delivery of "big IL' armadiller." The crew in general seemed to like us a lot, mainly I suspect, because we were all giddy idiots thrilled to be making a film in Hollyweird, unlike, say, actors, who are usually fighting over who has the biggest RV.

However...you watch this thing at your own peril. GF

After the initial mean-spirited sacrifice of a little girl by Mayan cultists, The Laughing Dead spends an excruciatingly dull forty minutes on build-up: a bunch of obnoxious characters (including a loud man who tells bad jokes, his irritable friend, a troubled teen stowaway, and a new-age hippie couple) join Father O'Sullivan (Tim Sullivan) on his annual archaeological expedition to a Mexican town celebrating the 'festival of the laughing dead'.

On the way, they coach stops to pick up a woman, Tess (Wendy Webb ), and her potty-mouthed son Ivan (Patrick Roskowick). Father O'Sullivan recognises Tess - an ex-nun with whom he had a love affair - and realises that Ivan is his son. Nothing of any real interest happens until the halfway point, when the group finally arrives at the town and settles in at a hotel, at which point it's as though someone has slipped some peyote into the drinks of everyone involved - the film suddenly goes completely bonkers, with lots of gory, surreal deaths, the bloody action culminating in a game of basketball with zombies and a battle between two Mexican kaiju! It doesn't make much sense, but at least it's entertaining.

The splattery fun starts with a woman ripping open her bare chest, pulling out her still beating heart, and swopping blood pumps with Father O'Sullivan, who becomes possessed by the 'death god'. The next fun effect is the (none-too-soon) decapitation of one of brash joker Dozois (Raymond Ridenour), his severed bonce flying out of a window to land in a basketball hoop; meanwhile his headless torso spurts claret from the neck wound. And there's a juicy moment when the group's coach - driven by supernatural forces - rolls over a man's head. Meanwhile, the cult's leader, Dr. Um-tzec (played by director Somtow) is busy ripping the hearts out of numerous blue-faced kiddies, with his eye on Ivan as the ultimate sacrifice. Perhaps the most memorable scene of all involves the possessed priest going crazy in the hotel lobby: he punches his fist through a woman's skull, squelching her brains in his hand, and then pulls off a man's arm and pushes it down the guy's throat, the fingers visibly twitching in his neck!

The crazy finalé involves the survivors fighting the forces of evil by trying to throw a basketball through a stone hoop, their opponents being a team of mouldy reanimated corpses. As the game plays out, Dr. Um-tzec and mulleted research assistant Cal (Ryan Effner) transform into giant rubbery creatures and duke it out. In the end, Ivan takes responsibility and throws the winning shot, and Father O'Sullivan is returned to normal when Tess declares her love for him, at which point I imagine the effects of the peyote wore off and everyone wondered what the hell they had been doing for the past few days.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb. It's totally nonsensical, but packs in lots of impressive practical special effects. If anything, the film answers that burning question 'What should I do if I find Mayan graffiti scrawled on a wall in what looks like fresh blood?'. Why, dip your finger in it and taste it, of course!

The Laughing Dead is an incredibly cheesy low budget film without any value. It handles about a bus-load of social misfits (guided by a priest who lost his faith and impregnated a foxy nun) on a sightseeing tour around Aztec ruins in Mexico. There, they're awaited by a bunch of demons, zombies and mad-raving creatures in order to kill them during the 'Death Festival'. The first 45 minutes of 'The Laughing Dead' is very tedious viewing since they're presenting us a character drawing nobody really cares about. The priest and the nun are re-united and he learns he's the father of a bratty kid. There's no intrigue and the acting is very lame so the first half is very tough to sit through. After that, The Laughing Dead turns into a joyful splatter movie with cheesy make-up effects and a repulsive amount of blood. People's heads are chopped off (and used as a basketball), buses drive over torsos and one poor bastards even has his own arm shoved down his throat!! The film is bad and extremely amateurish, but there's a market for this kind of crap. So, if you're in to gory nonsense you can check this one out.