Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Linda Shayne
• Written by Timothy Michaels and James W. McLaughlin
• Starring
  • Kristine Wayborn
  • James Fitzpatrick
  • Luc Leestemaker
  • Jameson Baltes
  • Trishalee Hardy
• Produced by Peter Yuval and Vlad Paunescu
• Executive produced by Peter Locke and Donald Kushner (and Charles Band, uncredited)

Judged against the standards of cinema at large, Little Ghost isn’t very good. Grading it beside its peers, though — against other juvenile movies made by the combined forces of the Kushner-Locke Co. and Full Moon Entertainment in Romania in the late 1990s — it may not look so bad. That’s mainly because some of those related features are godawful tripe that drag the bell curve down. But even here, in a movie which scores in the top half of its kind, we can see why the whole body of production could never really achieve much in the way of quality: Because they were locked into tropes, cliches, and production shortcuts which hobbled every attempt.

There were basic types among these movies: those which tried to pretend that the whole story took place in America or some other non-Romanian country, and those which found an excuse for a young American protagonist to come to eastern Europe. Little Ghost is one of the latter: Twelve-year-old Kevin (Jameson Baltes) is dragged along to “Sylvania” (also known as “Madeupia”) by his actress mother Christine (Kristina Wayborn), who has been convinced by her shallow-and-slimy boyfriend Tony (James Fitzpatrick) to sink the money from her last TV series into the lease of Castle Klemenko, which they will remodel into a high-priced resort spa.

Half the exercise at the spa will apparently involve taking the stairs.

(Sigh.) Again with the “evil capitalist” storyline. I’ve yet to determine whether the overreliance on this reflexively anti-American plot device by low-rent movie producers is evidence of complete denial, or an expression of a deep-seated self-loathing. Whichever it is, the American-financed production and worldwide distribution of kidsploitation movies which proclaim the evil of exporting Americanism just set my irony buzzer into overload.

Anyway. Kevin’s all set for an unhappy existence at the castle, as Tony steadily tries to drive a wedge between him and his mother. Naturally, none of these American adults can see the evil of destroying gardens and statuary to make way for pools and parking lots; the only person who gently opposes them is Pavel (Luc Leestemaker), the chief butler and caretaker of the castle. However, he’s a polite and deferential kind of guy, and his gentle protests fall on the deaf ears of the eager entrepreneurs.

Kevin does find that he has one other ally, though, on the day that invisible forces steal his ballcap. The ghost of twelve-year-old Sofia Klemenko (Trishalee Hardy), dead for thee hundred years still haunts the castle (the cause of her death is never even hinted at). Sofia tries to frighten him to begin with, but never really manages to do more than startle; her ballyhooed supernatural powers extend no further than what, say, a cheap FX crew could accomplish with fishing line. So instead, Kevin soon finds himself spending time with an age-appropriate galpal and her impressive collection of gowns.

“And this was MY room! What have you done with my Holly Hobbie collection?”

Sofia has been charged with the defense of the castle from outside dangers; her mother’s ghost is technically in charge, but only visits about once a year, leaving Sofia to fend for herself. And of course, the capitalist destruction of the historical bits of the castle qualify very definitely as dangers, so Sofia and Kevin together try to find ways to capsize the enterprise, break up Christine and Tony, and otherwise safeguard the integrity of the castle: She to preserve her haunting ground, he to get a freeloader out of his and his mother’s life. Most of the story thus follows what you would expect of a watered-down amalgamation of “The Canterville Ghost” and the recent film franchise based around the “Casper” comic book series.

Unfortunately, with this movie aimed squarely at the G-rated audience, Sofia’s main plan to “scare” the adults out is doomed to fail, because the movie can’t be even remotely scary. Her most terrifying tricks include pelting Tony with tomatoes at an open-air market or squirting him with a hose. Not only is he not scared, he never even figures out that there’s a ghost until the end of the movie. Plan B is to replace Tony with Pavel in Christine’s affections, but that one’s a no-starter partly because Pavel’s a low-key kind of guy who really can’t compete with Tony’s Hollywood flash, and partly because Christine sees Pavel’s attentions as stemming from the ulterior motive of keeping the castle as it was.

Tony’s such a seedy guy. (Thank you! Tip your waitress!)

As described, it’s an adequate little plot for an unassuming direct-to-video kid’s flick. Unfortunately, the movie burdens itself with enough flaws to make sure that ONLY children can stand to watch it, to wit:

- Trishalee Hardy as Sofia is no worse a child actor than Jameson Baltes as Kevin, by which I mean that neither will win Oscars, but they aren’t generally cringe-worthy. However, Hardy is another American actor brought over for the production, playing a native ghost. There are plenty of Romanian performers available (as demonstrated by everyone outside the core cast). Would it have been so hard to find a local girl to play the European ghost? Or barring that, an American girl who didn’t sound as white-bread American?

- Hardy and Baltes are, as mentioned, adequate in their roles; unfortunately, they’re also two of the best members of the cast. I’ve made disparaging remarks in other reviews about Romanian actors filling American roles, with or without dubbed dialogue, but in the case of Kristina Wayborn as Christine, I would have loved to have such an excuse on which to blame the wooden and lackluster performance. I also wonder exactly who Wayborn was supposed to appeal to, what with so many scenes of her wandering around in a backlit white nightie, exhibiting the rounded contours of a well-formed bosom. James Fitzpatrick as Tony is probably the best performer in the cast, but given that his character is cartoonish enough that he stands out even among the two-dimensional stereotypes, this isn’t exactly his time to shine.

Why is poor Kevin so terribly terribly confused? I’ll tell you…

- The voiceover. Yes, there’s a voiceover from an older Kevin (an uncredited Neil Kaplan, according to the IMDb), the inclusion of which is puzzling; the events of the story are presented as contemporary, so there isn’t a need for a Stand By Me-style contextual grounding, nor does the voiceover add anything more than the occasional extra joke. (Example: “Before Tony, birthdays didn’t suck.”) But on the other hand, the voiceover doesn’t seem like the kind of post-production scramble that often acts as a band-aid to salvage a hopeless production. My best guess is that it was simply a bad idea which was kept in because nobody realized that it was a bad idea. (Which really isn’t that surprising.)

- The soundtrack. I don’t usually complain about the incidental music, but the score provided by Cynthia Millar sounds like the demo reel for a line of Casio keyboards.

“Okay, but you can only dance like this to the first half of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’”

And this still qualifies for the top half of the Kushner-Locke Romanian kidvid productions? Yes, it does. Which probably says more about the rest of those productions than individual reviews would.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 0
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 2
• visible wires: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • James (”Jim”) Fitzpatrick played “Commander Williams” in five episodes of Enterprise