Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Joseph F. Robertson
• Written by Joseph F. Robertson and Gerald Stein
• Starring
  • Karen Black
  • Pat Morita
  • Kristine Anne Rose
  • Michael Berryman
• Produced by Gerald Stein

It used to be that Karen Black got roles written for attractive women. You may think I’m talking about way back, like 1978 when she appeared in Capricorn One. But at least as late as 1985, when she did an episode of The Hitchiker, she was regularly cast as a good looking woman — in some cases even as a seductress. Then somewhere along the way, it dawned on the good people of Hollywood that Karen Black is actually one of the most incredibly unattractive women of all time. (Those showbiz types don’t miss a thing, I tell you.) And from then on out, she ended up playing roles as evil stepmothers, witches, harpy bosses, etc. From the gusto with which she attacks these roles, she’s apparently comfortable with being as ugly as sin, and plays it up. In this movie, she even plays opposite Michael Berryman, and still comes off as the uglier of the two.

I always thought it was SPAGHETTI you’re supposed to throw at the wall.

Black is the titular Auntie Lee, proprietor of Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies. Since meat pies ain’t exactly popular cuisine here in the US of A (I’m not sure where this story’s supposed to take place, since I don’t know if all of the California plates are supposed to be ignored or noticed — all I know is that it doesn’t take place in Utah (you’ll understand later), you can pretty much guess that whenever they’re featured prominently in an American movie (”prominently,” like “in the title”), you’re watching a cannibalism movie.

And lo and behold, we start out with an unlikeable criminal lowlife ditching a stolen car with an expiring motor in it on the side of the road and hitching a ride with a priest (Pat Paulsen!), then blowing the priest away, crashing that car, and stealing the priest’s collar and shirt. (At this rate, he’s getting maybe three-quarters of a mile per vehicle.) The next car he flags down is driven by short-skirted hottie Magnolia (Playmate Ava Fabian), and naturally he stops behaving like a man of the cloth pretty quick. He gets her to park in a secluded spot, tosses her on the ground, and… I’m unsure if there’s supposed to be a rape indicated here. If there is, it’s probably one of the least coherent bits of storytelling in movie history, but if not, then I’m not sure what Ugly is grunting about. In any case, she quickly stabs him in the head with a pick, zips him into a bodybag she conveniently keeps in her trunk, and takes him home to Auntie Lee.

With a shot like this, who needs a funny caption?

Magnolia, you see, is one of Auntie Lee’s four drop-dead gorgeous nieces; the others are Fawn (Kristine Anne Rose), Coral (Playmate Teri Weigel — and thanks to everyone’s affected drawl, I honestly thought her name was “Carl” until the closing credits), and Sky (Playmate Pia Reyes, the token Asian). There’s also Baby (Playmate¹ Petra Verkaik), just as gorgeous as the others, but mentally at the level of an infant, and confined to a huge playpen upstairs. and rounding out the family is Auntie Lee’s well-meaning but cretinous brother Larry (Michael Berryman), whom the others use as the general gopher and manservant. Berryman, by the way, looks more bizarre than usual, as he plays the role without his dentures. As part of their standard business practices, the girls pick up hitchhikers and other “strays” and bring them home for a quick butchering (usually on the pretense of a tryst — if you’ve gotta go, I suppose anticipatory excitement is a pretty good final sensation) and inclusion in the meat pies which are so popular all over the rural county.

And now that you’ve gotten the setup, what else can I tell you about the movie? The plot is thinner than the fabric of the girls’ outfits, unless you’re using “plot” as synonymous with “stuff that happens, followed by other stuff that happens.”

If one pair’s good, two pair is better. (I’m talking about eyes, dammit!)

Part of our running time is taken up with the search for one Bob Evans (Stephen Quadros), one of Fawn’s victims being sought on behalf of his wealthy father by private eye Harold Ivars (David Parry). Harold hails from New York, and proclaims it at every conceivable juncture (”I’m not the kind of guy you want to push around, I’m from New York!”); I’m surprised that the producers weren’t hit with a class-action lawsuit from the City, County, and State of New York for portraying them as being witless losers with incredibly bad fashion sense.

The good news is that he’s not the only representative of the Big Apple; the bad news is that the other New Yorkers here are a three-man rock band and their manager, travelling to LA in a convertible. Once the girls shoot out their tires, the foursome gets invited back to the ranch for dinner. It’s incredible how much time they spend on this, with each of the girls getting to know her designated guy, the serving of hors d’ouevres and dinner (with Auntie Lee saying a beautiful prayer to the Lord of Darkness), and then each of the four getting sliced and diced separately and with extensive, um, foreplay. At least it’s not completely boring, but since the four rockers have proven themselves to be stupid, self-obsessed, and generally unsympathetic, it’s not like we cringe as each is dispatched with increasing novelty. One gets the idea that the crew was getting a little bored by this point as well, since the last half hour is characterized more and more by colored gels, moving shadows, and blacklight glows on increasinlgy surreal sets.

How could anyone doubt his city-bred street cred?

The only two characters who even manage to come off half-way sympathetic are poor, beset-upon Larry, and the town’s lone police officer, Chief Koal (Pat Morita — I guess rent was due that week). Larry’s got a hankering to be a policeman, and Koal even lets him consider himself a “volunteer deputy” — until Koal finds Larry stash of human bones in the back of Coral’s car and assumes that brain-damaged Larry’s been killing hitchhikers on his own.

Holding all of these elements together loosely are a few interesting cameos (in addition to Pat Paulsen, we’ve got Huntz Hall as a crotchey farmer), running gags dissing New Yorkers and pretentious rockers, a fair number of cheesecake shots (though a surprisingly low level of nudity), and of course the double-entendres which are to be expected when half of your cast is Playboy Playmates (Fawn to hitchhiker: “How far are you going?” Hitchhiker, looking her up and down: “All the way, if I can”).

Awright, who let the set designer into the cheap liquor again?

Really, aside from the opportunity to see Michael Berryman play a hapless gomer, there’s very little here that hasn’t been done several times at least as well, and usually better, in previous cannibal movies. I mean, there are only so many gags to be made about “inviting someone home for dinner.”

A Notable Quotable:

(I wasn’t going to include this, but I knew I’d be called on it if I left it out)

“Utah’s Mormon country. Auntie says Mormons been inbreeding with each other for such a long time, their brains are salty mush!”

- Coral to Sky

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 9, plus 1 chicken
• breasts: 4
• explosions: 3
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Michael Berryman (Larry) played “Captain Rixx” in the TNG episode “Conspiracy, and “Starfleet Display Officer” in Star Trek 4

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