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.

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

A bus load of tourists, several oddballs amongst them, travel to Mexico to learn about the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, but end up fighting zombies, human sacrifice, etc. I first saw this years ago on a bootleg VHS, now just revisited it on DVD. The film does boast some pretty good splatter but not until the second half. It's also pretty funny at times. However it also suffers from bad acting, a fairly dull first half and a plot that just confused the hell out of me. Admitably I felt tired at the time, perhaps that's why I was losing a grip on what was happening. If you like bad, gory movies then be sure to check out this one.

Truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen but that doesn't mean it has no redeeming value. I love how Patrick Roskowick's character is a totally over the top out of control ADHD brat who swears like a drunken sailor all the time. In other words, a typical American teenage boy. The kid is feisty, obnoxious and self absorbed but you know that deep down he has a heart of gold. (Just kidding!) When "Ivan" (the terrible) dons his special Aztec (or is it Mayan?) ceremonial sacrifice costume he changes his attitude.

The gore and blood spatter are ridiculously over the top and the "special effects" are as good as in any 1960s 8mm home movie shot with Dad's Kodak by a nerdy teenage boy in the AudioVisual club at school. In other words: Bad! But who cares?

I read an online review that said: "The child actor in this movie gave the all time worst performance by any child actor in history." Clearly the person who wrote that knows nothing about really bad child acting! Patrick's "Ivan" was the Sir Laurence Olivier of child acting compared to some bad child actors I've seen (yes, I'm looking at you, Jake Lloyd!) All in all, The Laughing Dead is a movie I would have never even remotely considered watching but gave it a chance. This movie actually has a few laughs in it. It really does try to be a horror/comedy. Sometimes it's funny when it didn't mean to be but that's beside the point. So, it's bad, but not all bad. As predicted, this was Patrick Roskowick's one and only movie. Too bad. I wanted to see him in The Laughing Dead 2 - Ivan's Revenge.

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!