Auntie Lee's Meat Pies (1992)

AUNTIE LEE’S MEAT PIES

WRITERS: Screenplay by Joseph F. Robertson and Gerald M. Steiner

DIRECTOR: Joseph F. Robertson

STARRING: Karen Black as Auntie Lee

Pat Mortia as Chief Koal

Kristine Anne Rose as Fawn

Michael Berryman as Larry

Ava Fabian as Magnolia

David Parry as Harold Ivars

Teri Weigel as Coral

Pia Reyes as Sky

Louie Bonanno as Doc

Walter Lang as John

Grant Cramer as Phil

Cort McCown as Craig

Richard Vidan as Bruno

QUICK CUT: A bunch of people get together to celebrate good food and family this holiday season.

THE MORGUE

Auntie Lee - A local purveyor of meat pies. She is very religious, protective of all her nieces, and her handyman, Larry. I’m sure she’s not harbouring any dark secrets.

Chief Koal - The local sheriff, who has no time for nonsense, but seems genuinely friendly. He will go to great lengths to protect his friends, within limits.

Larry - Auntie Lee’s handyman. He’s a bit slow, but has a good heart, and is eager to help out when he can.

Oh no, there’s credits in the road! Swerve! SWERVE!

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Triskgiving! I hope you survived the holiday, but here at Trisk, the killing continues. In order to keep things festive, we are gonna check out Auntie Lee's Meat Pies and see how it tastes.

We kick things off with a guy driving down the road, until someone shoots out his tire. He pulls over to check things out, as one does. It ain't good, and he has no spare, since he needed the space for the bloody body in his trunk. Oopsie.

Fortunately, a kind priest stops and gives him a lift. Unfortunately, the guy he picked up is a killer, and takes out the priest. Doubly unfortunately, the car has no driver, goes off the road, and crashes. This guy is just pissing through cars.

Forgive me, father, for I am about to sin.

But his solution to this problem is to steal the dead priest's vestments, figuring that will help him get picked up faster. And it does! A woman instantly picks him up, and just as instantly, the false priest pulls his gun on HER. Dude, wait for her to STOP THE CAR this time.

Naturally, she begs for her life, and he does have an idea! He makes her pull over, and oh yay, he's going to rape her. Well, I am already feeling unclean here.

But wait! If you remember, this ALL started because someone shot his tire. It turns out this woman was that someone! She is not some helpless damsel in distress, as we see when she pulls out a hair pin of some sort, and stabs it into her assaulter's brain.

She loads the dead fauxther into a body bag, and then into her car. So already we have a very sleazy, and very twisty movie. Colour me intrigued!

The lengths some people will go to, so they can use the carpool lane.

The girl, Magnolia, takes the dead body home, where we meet the titular Auntie Lee. She has the farm's handyman, Larry, take care of the disposal and cleanup.

Meanwhile, another niece, Fawn, is delivering some of the just as titular meat pies around town. And, look, just to cut to the chase here; all of Auntie Lee's girls are dressed and act very provocatively. No man can seem to resist their charms. Girl power, I guess?

After her delivery, Fawn picks up Bob Evans, while he is hitchhiking on the run from the law. At the very least for pulling a dine and ditch, but who knows what else?

She takes him home, and they start groping. Before they can go too far though, he heads into the pantry, and runs afoul of a trap that slices his head clean off.

Elsewhere, yet ANOTHER of Auntie Lee's nieces is having car trouble, and the town sheriff shows up to offer her a ride home. This one is uh…checking notes…Coral!

After dropping off Coral, the sheriff finds Larry, and gives him a ride to pick up Coral's car, to add it to the to do list.

So far, this movie is all repairing cars and eating, and it somehow works. It’s moving at a pace, and it’s throwing enough balls into the air to be interesting.

Meanwhile, a private eye wanders into the chief's office, since he's looking for that Bob Evans fella. He settles in nicely into the chief's chair, to call back to the guy's family, and check in.

Chief Koal is none too pleased to find someone resting in his chair, so he threatens him with a wakizashi he has on display.

From there, he runs into Magnolia and asks her a few questions, but mostly he very shamelessly flirts with her. She flirts right back, but he actually has some level of focus, and chooses to keep investigating.

There will be no more killing for you, Rubber!

Out on the road, Coral and Sky have been sent to acquire more meat for the pies, and shoot the tires out of a car filled with four members of a band.

So, yeah, this is really just a more sleazy, less classy, Sweeny Todd.

Auntie Lee calls the mechanic for the boys, but he can't get to them until morning. They're about ready to go sleep in their car for the night, but no no! You simply must sleep in the house! All the better to kill you...er, it's the hospitable thing to do!

Back at the town garage, Larry is getting the tire fixed, and as he's trying to organise the trunk, the chief comes along to help.

And oops, he finds a bag full of body parts. Wait wait, whose are these?? All right, I need every one to put down their corpses and tell me who killed who!

Over at the farm, the boys are hanging out, and Auntie Lee is keeping everyone fed with some leftover franks, and passing around cups of joe.

The private eye meets a local yokel who is an absolute HOOT because he has zero tolerance for big city nonsense, and isn't afraid to let Harold know. But, he does point him in the direction of Auntie Lee and her girls, so there's that.

Speaking of which, they are having a huge feast for themselves and the band. Auntie Lee is saying a prayer over dinner, and look, I know they're a metal band, but STILL to have Auntie Lee praying to Lucifer and NOT A SINGLE PERSON BLINKS is unreal.

I love that the entire band is just so squawkin' METAL that they're just all, "Oh yeah, this is fine, this is normal."

While everyone has a nice meal, Auntie Lee decides to finally introduce the boys to Baby, and let me tell you...if I had a quarter for every movie I've seen featuring an adult stuck acting like a baby, well, I'd have two quarters.

Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!

Also, the longer we spend at this house, the more rooms we see outside of the usual kitchen, dining, and living room, the weirder the place gets. No one decorates like this.

Back at the police station, Koal and Larry are off in a plot all their own really. To keep a long story from getting much longer, Koal wants to know who the body parts are, and he says they're people that made fun of him. He doesn't remember any of their names, and he doesn't know if he killed Bob Evans.

How many times have I told you, stop delivering to that Herbert West guy?

Now, Larry is a very unreliable narrator, since he's forgetful, and it's honestly never made clear if he has killed people, ore they're all body parts he's disposing of for Auntie Lee and the girls. I'd like to think he's completely innocent, but there's enough evidence that he's killed at least a few people on his own to make me suspect that is not the case. There might be a throwaway line in the credits that clears him, but who knows?

ANYways, this plot will eventually feed back into the end of the movie, and we'll catch back up with it then.

Meanwhile, back at Auntie Lee's, the girls and boys all split off to do their thing, and we get to see more of the bizarre decorations around this house.

Just one taste of Auntie Lee's Meat Pies, and you'll be HOOKED!

A lot goes on since there's still 40 minutes to go, but it's really just a collection of similar scenes with each of the band members meeting their collective ends, cutting back to Koal and Larry on occasion to keep that thread alive.

Oh, and Harold Ivers is continuing his investigation around here too, but again, we'll get back to that.

And make no mistake, while I'm really skimming through this final act more than usual, the movie does kinda go from zero to bugfuck in a blink of an eye.

Yeah, we got them cheap from this mask company's going out of business sale.

Do you see what I mean about this place's decor? Every room is stylized like this, done up with black light paint, and it is so weird.

And look, I don't normally do images this closely back to back, but there's really not a lot going on here, and I want to show off this set design.

Was this formerly owned by a carnival sideshow??

Once all the band members are taken care of and being broken down in the kitchen, that's a good time for Harold Ivers to show back up, looking for the missing kid. See, the plots are coming back around eventually.

Magnolia sees who is, and flirts with him. We get a sequence of him coming close to stumbling on the truth, with him JUST missing seeing a cabinet full of severed limbs and things like that, but Magnolia keeps him unawares.

Eventually, they lure him into the pool for a swim, all the girls join in, and they end up stabbing him to death. All while Auntie Lee hovers over and chants to their dark lord and makes the largest bowl of minestrone soup ever.

But there is still one plot thread lingering, and we come back around to that in due course, when Larry and the Chief come driving up the next morning.

Koal explains the situation, as he believes it, to the girls. And he tells them in no uncertain terms, that there is just nothing within his power that he can do to keep Larry out of prison.

So one of the girls is all, oh gosh oh darn, the garbage disposal isn't working! Can you come over and help us poor silly girls fix it, Chief Coal?

So, he does, and if you've seen any number of horror movies, you can probably guess what happens while his arm is down the sink drain, as he is murdered to protect Larry. And we learn in the final moments of the film, that he is Auntie Lee's brother.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: This looks really good, way better than you would expect something this sleazy to look. VinSyn wins again.

Audio: It sounds really good too, but in the realm of what you expect.

Sound Bite: “I don't have to know a man to love him. I just have to love a man...to kill him."

Body Count: Not too bad.

1 - About four minutes in, and a priest meets his boss real fast.

2 - The killer of the priest gets a hairpin to the brain.

3 - Bob Evans loses his head

4 - Doc meets his end with baby

5 - Another band member gets his eyes Oedpial'd and stabbed

6 - Coral hooks another band member in the basement

7 - Craig gets pierced by a snake statue

8 - Harold gets group stabbed in the pool

9 - Chief Koal gets his hand sliced up, and shot in the head.

Best Corpse: Craig getting stabbed is nicely done, and weird.

Sex Appeal: Not much to speak of, which is weird with how sleazy the movie tries to play it.

Blood Type - C+: There’s not a huge amount of blood in this movie, but what’s there works.

Drink Up! Every time someone makes fun of New York City.

Movie Review: This movie was a lot of fun. The cast is higher quality than usual, the story is decent enough, and it ends well. It’s a bit rocky with the tone, when it’s not sure how sleazy it should be, and there is a LOT going on. It might have been a stronger story with a few less plots that don’t really add much. The plus side is, all the characters are likable to one degree, and you’re never bored. Still, it might just be the most well shot movie to sleaze ratio I’ve seen, and it was just a solid, entertaining time. Three out of five meat pies.

Entertainment Value: Pat Morita is clearly having a lot of fun in this, and the women are all having fun. The effects are decent, and when the movie gets weird, it gets fairly weird, while remaining grounded. A charming, if sleazy, movie. Three out of five bags of hands.