Cold Fusion Video Reviews

aka All the Colors of the Dark

• Directed by Sergio Martino
• Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Santiago Moncada, and Sauro Scavolini
• Starring
  • Edwige Fenech
  • George Hilton
  • Tom Felleghy
• Produced by Mino Loy and Luciano Martino

Director Sergio Martino has had what might be called an undistinguished career. His biggest impacts on America were all in the form of ripoffs: The Great Alligator (which follows in the steps of every Jaws imitator), After the Fall of New York (an even cheaper version of Escape From New York), and Hands of Steel (another post-apoc). This film, from earlier in his career, falls solidly into that distinctly Italian category of “giallo,” which, as far as I can tell, translates best as “crime/suspense pulp.” Not being an expert in giallos, I can’t say if he was imitating anyone in particular with this one, but I can say that this particular giallo was more annoying than anything.

Our first scene is a dream, with a naked woman being stabbed to death by, well, the bridge of a nose. All right, it’s meant to be a close-up on the killer’s eyes, but it could be an advertisement for widescreen: In the pan & scan version, the killer’s eyes keep getting cropped off on the sides, leaving the bridge of his nose. (We do get clear enough shots of the eyes to say, “Hey, nice blue contacts!” It’s like having the first shot of a monster focus right on the zipper; doesn’t bode well for the rest of the flick.)

The dreamer is Jane, a young raven-haired beauty in London. (The movie was made in England with a mixed British/Italian cast, with the result that all voices are re-recorded; some lips match the dialog, some don’t.) Her problem, apparently, is that she isn’t taking the pills that her live-in Richard, the sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, keeps giving her for her dreams.

Here’s the back story that trickles out: She got pregnant, then a few months ago they had a car accident and she lost the baby. Since then, she’s been plagued by nightmares of her mother’s death; that’s right, she was stabbed to death by a man with piercing blue eyes.

Jane’s sister Barbara works for a psychiatrist, Dr. Burton, and Jane agrees to see him, over Richard’s objections (seems he’s more comfortably slipping unprescribed samples to her). While in the waiting room, Jane has a panic attack: There’s another man there, watching her, with piercing blue eyes.

Heading home, she sees him again on the Metro. And again in the park. She races back to the flat, and meets Mary, the new move-in on the lower floor. Mary’s a blonde with a predilection for wearing shirts with collar lines that dip to the navel (hey, it was the seventies). They agree to meet tomorrow for shopping.

Then Jane gets a mysterious call from a solicitor, who makes an appointment to see her the next day without revealing the reason. She also has a panic attack, as she thinks she sees Blue Eyes out the window; it turns out to be a neighbor in an identical coat.

The next day, Mary proposes a simple solution: Jane should join her at a Sabbat. Great for what ails you, she says. Jane agrees, planning to go after meeting the solicitor.

But she doesn’t make it to the solicitor’s office — on the stairs, guess who she meets? That’s right, Blue Eyes — and this time he’s brandishing a stiletto at her. She runs out and hops in her car, WHICH DOESN’T START FOR NO GOOD REASON (I hate that); she barely gets away.

Mary takes her to the Sabbat at an old manor house, where about twenty robed and pale followers watch the goateed High Priest butcher a dog for the blood, then give Jane the blood, with the admonition, “Drink this, and you will be free.” As soon as she drinks, he rips off her dress, and kisses her. Then Mary kisses her. Then half the attendees kiss her. And then the High Priest has her on the floor. (All of this while ominous “mystic disco” is playing.)

Cut to that night, having sex with Richard; she simply says, “I feel strange, I don’t feel real.”

The next day, having lunch with Richard, she panics when he leaves to make a telephone call and she sees Blue Eyes again. (Are we sensing a trend yet? See Blue Eyes, panic; see Blue Eyes, panic; see Blue Eyes…)

Mary wanders back to the manor house for another Sabbat (cue mystic disco). The High Priest says that if she gives herself over to the Powers of Evil, she will be free. (Hey, didn’t they say she’d be free if she drank the blood?) Then Mary enters and says that Jane has to stab her to death to be free (Hey, didn’t they say etc.). Why does Mary want to die? Because then she’ll be free. (Hey, etc.) Mary impales herself on the knife Jane’s holding.

Then there’s some kind of time lapse, and Jane is coming back to the manor, being led by Blue Eyes. Huh? Yeah. She tries to confront the High Priest, but gets all confused. The High Priest opines that now Mary is free, because she brought in someone to replace her — Jane. (What, I thought Jane was free now? Do you mean that the High Priest of the Powers of Evil told a fib?) She runs out; Blue Eyes catches her and chloroforms her.

She wakes in her own bed, to find a tattoo on her arm, that looks like the talisman around the High Priest’s neck: An inverted triangle with an eye in the center. She runs to Mary’s apartment — but a strange woman answers.

She calls Richard, who’s out of town on business, pleading with him to come back. Then she sees Blue Eyes out the window. She calls Dr. Burton, who promises to send someone to pick her up. Blue Eyes enters the apartment, chases her around, stabs at her — and disappears. It’s a hallucination.

Right about here I began hoping the entire movie was a hallucination, that I’d wake up and realize that no movie could have such a disjointed, meandering storyline. No such luck.

The doctor gives her some pills and drives her out to his country house, where the elderly caretakers will look after her until morning.

But when she wakes up in the morning, the caretakers are both dead at the breakfast table. She calls Burton in a panic; Burton takes the call with both Barbara and Richard in his office, but doesn’t tell Richard anything. Richard gets suspicious anyway and follows.

Out in the country, Blue Eyes menaces her, saying, “You can’t renounce us!” He reveals that the stiletto he has is not only the one that killed Mary, but also the one that killed her mother — when she tried to renounce them!

He chases her through the house; she gets outside, to find Dr. Burton dead behind the wheel of his car. She runs across the grounds, and Blue Eyes almost gets her — but Richard shows up and buries a pitchfork in his back.

Jane wakes in the hospital, and to her horror, the police inspector over the case is the High Priest. Richard takes her home, and takes the stairs to bring the elevator down; there’s a struggle, and when Jane gets to the elevator, she finds him dead. The “inspector” High Priest arrives, and the two bobbies assisting him have the triangle-eye tattoos on their wrists. They drag her back to the manor, where the High Priest impales her…

And she wakes up in the hospital again, this time with a real inspector on the case. (The last ten minutes were all a dream, see.) He tells them that cult members are being rounded up, though the High Priest is also at large. Oh, and he also says that Barbara has committed suicide, and she was apparently the mastermind behind the whole cult.

And the solicitor shows up. Remember him? Here’s the deal: The guy who murdered her and Barbara’s mother died a while back, leaving an inheritance of 600,000 pounds for them. So Barbara’s been trying to get all the money for herself.

Jane and Richard go home. Richard goes up the stairs to bring the elevator down; Jane has deja vu, and shouts out a warning, just as the High Priest attacks Richard. The High Priest bellows at Richard about killing Barbara, then escapes across the rooftops. Richard followed, and the High Priest plummets to his death.

And then, here’s the kicker: Jane says she knew what was going to happen, just like she already knew that Richard killed Barbara (?). She hugs him and says, “Oh, darling, help me!”

The end.

No, really, that’s it.

So apparently, we’re supposed to believe that Barbara set up this incredibly elaborate charade, with Blue Eyes purposely resembling the guy who killed Mom, just to get the inheritance? How would that help? I mean, even if you drive Jane crazy, crazy people can still inherit money, right? If you wanted Jane dead, why not have someone just knife her in the alley?

There are a couple of effective moments — Jane’s panic attacks are usually pulled off effectively — but not enough to justify the payoffs without setups and the setups without payoffs that fill the script.

So then I went to bed, and oddly enough I didn’t dream about this movie.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 8
• breasts: 8
• explosions: 0
• dream sequences: 4
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0