A moronic little trifle, AUNTIE LEE'S MEAT PIES is set in the California desert town of "Penance" and stars Karen Black as the title character, who's renowned in the area for her tasty meat pies which she prepares and bakes, aided by her retarded brother Larry (Michael Berryman), in the
basement of their secluded adobe ranch house.
The pies' main ingredient is, of course, human flesh, mixed with a "special blend of herbs and spices," which is provided by male hitchhikers and tourists enticed to the slaughterhouse by Lee's four shapely, cleavage-heavy nieces, Fawn (Kristine Anne Rose), Magnolia (Ava Fabian), Coral (Teri
Weigel) and Sky (Pia Reyes). Local police chief Koal (Pat Morita), a fan of both Auntie and her pies, has no idea what's going on until he discovers a garbage bag full of human bones in Coral's car trunk, but he arrives too late to save a dopey New York private investigator, Harold Ivers (David
Perry), and a sleazy heavy-metal rock quartet led by Doc (Louie Bonanno), all waylaid and messily dispatched by the girls.
Stumbling along the cannibal-themed trail blazed by THE FOLKS AT RED WOLF INN, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH and, of course, Sweeney Todd, AUNTIE LEE'S MEAT PIES is feebly co-written by director Joseph F. Robertson and producer/editor Gerald M. Steiner (who last collaborated
on l990's campy DR. CALIGARI), with plenty of genre-required female nudity and gore effects.
Mostly ineptly acted and shot on a shoestring budget in Fullerton, California, the film is neither funny nor horrific. In fact, the only shock here is the spirited participation of mainstream actors Karen Black and Pat Morita. TV's Pat Paulsen has one brief scene (but no dialogue) early on as a
minister/victim, while the veteran Bowery Boys comic Huntz Hall turns up as a farmer, the understandably irritated neighbor of Auntie and the girls. (Violence, substance abuse, nudity, profanity.) leave a comment