Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Joseph Sargent
• Written by Jeffrey Bloom and Christopher Crowe
• Starring
  • Cristina Raines
  • Emilio Estevez
  • Lance Henriksen
  • Veronica Cartwright
  • Richard Masur
• Produced by Christopher Crowe

The greatest thing about an anthology movie is that each story can get in, say its piece, and get out without overstaying its welcome. Even if a bad story comes along, you know you’re not going to have to suffer for more than twenty minutes — half hour tops. Compare that with a two-hour stinker.

And in this case, while some of the stories had their weaknesses, nothing really stank up the place.

No framing device; after a credit sequence that looks an awful lot like the box (rolling along the Salt Flats with paint-tank clouds on the horizon and a pair of evil eyes staring at us), we head into the first story:

Chapter 1: Terror in Topanga

During a nighttime traffic stop, a cop is stabbed to death by someone leaping from the bushes. This is our introduction to the latest whacko terrorizing California, and the TV and radio are going wild with his exploits; the cop is his fifth victim.

But that’s not enough incentive to keep Lisa in her house — not when she gets the kids to bed (after 11PM? they’re preschoolers!) and discovers she’s out of cigarettes. Her husband flatly forbids her to go to the store with that loonie running around, but when she’s checked the pockets of all her jackets, she leaves him a note about non-addicts not being able to understand, and heads down the canyon.

She gets the cigarettes from a spooky-ass shopkeeper, and begins home, only to realize she’s almost out of gas. She keeps approaching gas stations, and they all turn out to be closed. Finally, she stops at an out of the way station… honks… and out comes a dead-eyed attendent, who just happens to pefectly match the killer’s description on the radio…

There’s a good element of urban legend in this story (the moral nature of which is emphasized when Lisa throws away her cigarettes as the story closes), but probably wouldn’t have seemed nearly so blatant to the original viewers of this movie. Instead, most of the story is setup, something you can only get away with in a short; extended to feature-length, such a long ominous set-up would have the audience moaning for them to get on with it!

Chapter 2: The Bishop of Battle

Here’s the weak link in the anthology.

Young J.J. Colley (Emilio Estevez in one of his first feature roles) is a video game wizard. Since this is the ’80s, it means he wears shirts without sleeves and a big-ass walkman cranked up whenever he plays. In a pointless introduction (which is they only way they could get the storyline long enough), J.J. and his bespectacled friend Zock (Billy Jayne, the smart kid from Bloody Birthday) do a classic pool-hall hustle in a Latino-filled arcade; they barely make it away with their ill-gotten $25.

After an argument about J.J.’s obsession with video games, they split up for the day, and J.J. goes into his local arcade to try again to best his nemesis: The Bishop of Battle. Seems that, though there are thirteen levels, everyone he knows has died on the twelfth (though he’s heard rumors of some guy in Jersey who’s gotten to 13 twice — now just think, how did rumors ever spread before the Internet?). Everyone crowds around to watch him give the game is best. After several minutes of close-ups of his seeaty nose and lightning-quick hands intercut with vintage ’80s computer graphics, he dies… on level twelve. Everyone clears out, and as he tries to play again, the owner pushes him out for closing time.

J.J.’s parents, concerned about his performance in school, ground him until his grades come up. That night, he creeps out the bedroom window and crowbars his way into the arcade to finally finish it with the Bishop of Battle.

Now, I don’t think I’m giving away too many spoilers when I say this is one of those “game that isn’t a game” stories that were pandemic in the early ’80s. And therein lies the main problem: as soon as you know this is a video game story, there’s nothing at all surprising happening. We know that J.J. is going to be obsessed beyond all reason with this quarter-eating game (because back then there wasn’t an Internet for them to write cautionary tales about); we know that Level 13 is going to somehow make J.J. a part of the game, because there’s no other twist to these video game stories. It would have been effective if they had shown a blank screen for 20 minutes and said, “Here — this was supposed to be a ‘video-game-that’s-not-a-game’ story; make up your own.”

Chapter 3: The Benediction

Lance Henriksen is a priest (stop laughing) at a small parish who’s undergoing a crisis of faith, spurred on by the violent death of a young boy. As he explains to his bishop, he’s lost his belief in the whole good ‘n’ evil thing; he sees people instead being “ground up in the gears of anarchy” (his words, not mine). He finally decides to leave the ministry, and takes his old beater car and a pocketful of cash (and a canister of holy water to drink) across the desert.

Out in Nowhereland he meets an ominous black 4×4. At first it just cuts him off and goes on its way, but it keeps reappearing, forcing him off the road, knocking off his bumper, almost flattening his stunt double (sorry, folks, it was pretty obvious). It almost doesn’t seem — mortal (cue ominous music).

This chapter benefits from some of the same features that the first one does: Slow buildups to suspense. It also benefits from Henriksen, who has the expressive face that can effectively build drama in what is largely a wordless, single-character storyline. And the desert imagery is a perfect backdrop for a story about a man who finds himself in a wasteland of faith.

Unfortunately, it raises some theological questions afterward. See, if the truck’s diabolical in origin, then why is it trying to give Henriksen a clear sign that the good’n'evil thing is real? Won’t that just give him back his faith? I’d think that the devil wouldn’t bother with someone who’s given in to despair about the reality of good, since that person’s not going to be a threat to the Demonic Hordes.

The other problem is a certain muddled narrative. Both the boy’s death and the interview with the bishop are told in broken flashbacks; between that and an unconnected dream sequence about a deer and a rattlesnake, it’s awfully hard to tell what happens when.

Chapter 4: Night of the Rat

Technically speaking, it’s actually “Several Nights of the Rat,” but whatever…

Claire (Veronica Cartwright, Alien) can hear the rats moving in the walls of her beautiful home, but her husband Steven (Richard Masur) ignores it. As I’m sure you know, Masur always plays one of two roles: a big bearishly-huggable guy, or an unbelievable bastard. Here he’s in bastard role, as an egotistically-obsessed go-getter who never misses to opportunity to belittle his wife in saccharine tones in front of their daughter.

Even though he says he’ll take care of it with a couple of rat traps in the attic, the disturbances get worse: things start falling off shelves, and the family cat disappears. Claire goes ahead and calls an exterminator (Albert Hague, Mr. Shorofsky from Fame!), who discovers that this rat has gnawed huge holes behind various cabinets, and also likes to chew on the power cables. Naturally, Steven comes home, belittles his wife, and dismisses the exterminator.

That night, the rat really gets busy.

Oddly enough, this story acts in nifty counterpoint to the second chapter; even though the storyline goes exactly as predicted (no one’s surprised when Steven gets his rifle and starts blasting the walls), it’s still a great ride, largely because of the abrasion between Claire and Steven. In fact, the biggest reason for watching becomes the hope that Steven’s gonna take it in the balls.

Biggest drawback is the special effects. When we finally see the rat, it’s obviously a combination of puppet, bluescreened normal rat, and forced perspective.

And Steven doesn’t take it in the balls.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 2
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 17
• dream sequences: 1 (although, if you take the title literally, then this is actually 4 dream sequences!)
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 4
  • Anthony James (the counter clerk in Chapter 1) was “Sub-Commander Thei” in the TNG 1st-season episode “The Neutral Zone”
  • Louis Giambalvo (J.J.’s dad in Chapter 2) was “Cosimo” in the Voyager 2nd-season episode “Non Sequitur”
  • Tony Plana (the friar in Chapter 3) played “Amaros” in the DS9 two-parter “The Maquis”
  • Robin Gammell (the bishop in Chapter 3) was “Mauric” in the TNG 7th-season episode “Attached”