Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Peter Traynor
• Written by Anthony Overman and Michael Ronald Ross
• Starring
  • Sondra Locke
  • Colleen Camp
  • Seymour Cassel

Some movies are good. Some movies are bad. But naturally, that’s not all there is to it. (Otherwise, what the hell am I doing writing these full-length reviews?) Some movies are admittedly bad, but are still great to watch. And some movies are good, but hard to watch. These latter movies are intentionally unsettling, sometimes even grueling, because they’re trying to convey well a distasteful story or subject. You can appreciate ‘em with one part of your brain, you can applaud them — but your gut sure doesn’t enjoy them.

Death Game is a weird movie in that respect. It has good parts. It has bad parts. And because of the story it’s telling, I don’t know which part is less enjoyable to watch.

“Hey, girls! Is the ‘wet look’ back again already?”

Our protagonist is one George Manning, played by Seymour Cassel, and believe me, I’ve never seen a man who more deserved a name like “Seymour.” Because this poor fella is ugly, even by the standards of the ’70s. But aside from having a face like he’s been chasing parked cars, George has a pretty good life. He’s successful in his San Francisco business, and he has a devoted wife (Beth Brickell) and two nigh-perfect kids. It’s also his fortieth birthday, and the kids are off visiting Grandma out of state, which just makes his birthday that much more important. At least, it does until a call from Grandma reveals that his son’s appendix has just burst.

Since George has a big meeting the day after tomorrow, his wife volunteers to fly out to be there for the appendectomy, leaving poor George alone on his birthday. He takes it like a trooper, cheerfully drinking sherry and listening to his happenin’ turntable-and-8-track stereo system well into a stormy evening, until there’s a knock at the door.

Two young waifs are on his front porch, Jackson (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen Camp), lost on their way to a party and soaked to the skin. He invites them in to call and try and find where they’re supposed to be — and shucks, they’re on the wrong side of town. He gets them some robes while their clothes go in the dryer, something to drink, he’s the perfect gentleman while they ooh and ahh over his house and his stereo and stuff… Then they explore the house, including his souped-up bathroom, he finds that they’re, uh, testing out the jacuzzi and the sauna. Nekkid. And they kind pull him into their little game, which means…

ew ew ew Seymour Cassel in a steamy three-way ew ew ew

Great. Now I feel like I need a bath.

And here’s where one of my major annoyances really comes to a head: The music. Yes, I know that this was made in the mid-’70s, and I shouldn’t just a movie by how poorly it aged… but I’ve already sat through an annoying theme song (an “ironically” chipper ditty called “Dear Old Dad,” which I will have numerous opportunities to hear throughout the 91-minute running time), as well as the annoying (even for the era) pop that George uses to demonstrate his top-of-the-line stereo. After all that, who honestly thought it was a good idea that the steamy sex scene be accompanied by music that sounds like an instrument version of the Love Boat theme?

Anyway. George obviously enjoys his little tryst, because hey, he’s a good husband and all, but it’s his birthday, and fidelity only goes so far in the ’70s, right?

The next morning, George wakes up to find the girls making breakfast — the ride they called for last night never showed up. George is a little troubled, both by (presumably) a guilty conscience, and the girls’ increasingly unsettling behavior. (Your first clue should have come last night, George. I mean, it was your birthday, and you were probably a bit tipsy from the sherry — but come on, you look like Seymour Cassel! What are the odds that two sexy nymphs who force themselves on you don’t have mental issues?) They eat like animals, they declare they’d rather stay with George than go home, they start playing his stereo loud (damned kids), they dress in his wife’s lingerie… And when George finally gets fed up and threatens to call the cops, they drop the bomb: Jackson’s seventeen, and Donna’s fifteen. Who were you going to call again, George?

“Hey, check me out! I’m a Muppet!”

After some maniacal laughter and piano pounding, the girls finally let themselves be persuaded to ride along with George into San Francisco to the Greyhound station (since they’ve kind of revealed that they live on the road), annoying him all the way. But he finally off-loads them, stops by the office to call his wife and check on his son, picks up some groceries on the way home…

…And when he gets there, the girls have beaten him back. They mace him, knock him out, and tie him to the bedframe with stripped sheets.

And this is just the halfway mark of the movie.

All the way through, I was reminded of the more recent movie Dead Boyz Can’t Fly. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Howard Winters, producer/director of the latter movie, had seen Death Games. Not that the one is a direct ripoff of the other, but there are enough correspondences to make you wonder. To wit:

And yes, the girls did make the required “all tied up right now” joke.

- Both movies are about sociopaths, rather than about the “good” guys who fight them. As such, they’re both portraits of the criminally disturbed, rather than simply using crazies as convenient villains for plot reasons.

- Both have mock trials featured prominently in their second halves. Granted, that’s not a terribly original idea (how many Batman comics have the denizens of Arkham Asylum placing the Caped Crusader on trial?), but it’s still a similarity between the two.

In any event, both movies are intentionally hard to watch, as both dwell extensively on the actions of individuals who have placed themselves beyond the call of conscience, for whom “good” and “evil” have utterly no meaning and no relevance. These girls aren’t bad for the sake of rebellion or thrills; they honestly have no internalized sense of empathy, no superego to restrain their hands. Especially Donna, who seems very fixated on George as an erotic father figure, seems to have no more malice to her actions than a toddler stomping on ants. Somehow, that makes the proceedings more tortuous, like observing a natural disaster which has been endowed with human ingenuity.

These parts are supposed to be taxing to watch. That’s the point. But heaped on that are the movie’s flaws, which afflict the senses in entirely other ways, like a two-pronged attack. Can I harp on the music too much? I doubt it, especially since it seems that the most annoying parts of the soundtrack are repeated most often. That “Good Old Dad” thing may have seemed clever in the beginning, but even that slight bit of wit wears thin quickly once the entire damned song is played in its entirety three or four times (and then used as instrumental themes throughout much of the rest of the movie). While an ironically cheery bit of music can work well in a movie (see, for instance, every score that Danny Elfman has ever composed), a little goes a long way, and before long the uncompromised conviviality of the song simply becomes grossly inappropriate.

And they all lived happily ever after. OR DID THEY???

There are also some weird visuals that don’t seem intentional so much as desperate. There are scenes that are supposed to be sexy, and there are scenes that are supposed to be unsettling with sexual overtones, but neither intent accounts for the fact that the camera keeps seeking out glimpses of the girls’ underwear during fight scenes.

And the final kicker (which I’ll not spoil here) is a tacked-on scene of “Justice will triumph” which is, frankly, insulting to the intelligence of the audience. (Yes another feature this shares with Dead Boyz Can’t Fly, by the way.)

I’m still trying to decide whether the good side or the bad side of this movie wins out. Ultimately it’s an academic question. Good or bad, the movie is scarcely indifferent, and as much respect as I may ultimately hold for it, I’ll be in no hurry to watch it again.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 3 (plus 1 cat, and several goldfish)
• breasts: 4
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 2
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Seymour Cassel (George) played “Lt. Cmdr. Hester Dealt” in the TNG episode “The Child”