Criminally Insane

Fat Ethel Janowski enjoys eating a lot.After staying in an asylum and having electro shocks therapy Ethel is released to live with her grandmother.Ethel wants to eat and her grandma tries to stop Ethel's eating habits.Ethel murders her grandmother with a kitchen knife and she can eat peacefully as much as she wants.In the meantime more murders take place.Technically crude,raw and suitably unsettling cult psycho-slasher about murderous obese woman.The gore effects are lame,the blood looks like a red paint,but the central performance of Priscilla Alden is great.I haven't seen the sequel of "Criminally Insane" or "Death Nurse" movies,but someday I will.8 out of 10.Don't mess with Crazy Fat Ethel.She will butcher you with meat cleaver and eat your tasty flesh.

Barely an hour long, this has got to be one of the worst horror films of the 70s. Ethel is fat, crazy and hungry for blood in this dreary minimalist gore film. The cast is made up of some of the ugliest people in recent memory, the classical/experimental music score is annoying and of course the acting is atrociously BAD!! Millard's "directing" is completely devoid of style and/or talent, except for an entertaining nightmare sequence where Ethel chops up a bloody mannequin while director Millard indulges in using negative image effects. The blood does flow freely but is way below the standard of your average H.G. Lewis film. If you can make it through this movie try watching the sequel. It's twice as bad as this!!!

Made in 1973 but not released until a couple of years later, CRIMINALLY INSANE is probably the most famous movie made and released by IRMI Films of Pacifica, California. The film stars Bay Area actress Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski, an immensely obese misanthrope who is prematurely released from a mental institution and sent to live with her grandmother. Ethel's insatiable appetite for food causes problems for her grandmother, who promptly restricts her granddaughter's feeding habits. Big mistake! Ethel does away with granny and any other visitor that enters the house. Unforgettable ending.

This is probably the cheapest film I've ever seen (and believe me, I know cheap): the entire film has a grainy "home movie" quality, the music sounds like two musicians constantly tuning their instruments, negative printing is used for a dream sequence, and the acting is pitiful, except Alden, who gives a wonderfully demented and memorable performance as Ethel. This picture is extremely pathetic and even though I've never had the nerve to tell anyone else that I own the film (much less played it for anyone), I still find it very compelling viewing. There's some "other worldly" quality to it that makes it quite unique (and satisfying, if you've got really low standards like me). Don't say you weren't warned!

The exact same cast and crew returned for CRAZY FAT ETHEL II, and a loosely related film called DEATH NURSE (both released in 1987 and both starring Alden).

See, Ethel isn't actually insane. She just wants to eat, sit around the house by herself and be left alone for some seconds on dessert. Maybe thirds. Hell she'll clean off the whole sponge cake, the can of icing, maybe some ice cream too on the side. If one thing, she's not shy about her craving for food, and how she lets it consume her. She doesn't eat the food so much as the food kind of uses her as a conduit. Ethel is merely a walking process by which it gets eaten. I will always refer to this movie by it's most famous re-title: FAT CRAZY ETHEL. Try it on a double bill with FAT GUY GOES NUTZOID and remember the cheeze dip. FAT CRAZY ETHEL was one of two startling horror features made by porno/exploitation veteran Nick Millard in an ill-fated attempt to go straight in the mid 1970s: Check out SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING for something a bit more conventional, though not much more. His work might not have grabbed hold of the imagination of mainstream viewers, but fans of ultra-low budget indie regional horror will find a fascinatingly claustrophobic and morbidly obese little horror thriller here. The film mostly takes place within the creepy, tacky interior of Ethel's aunt's house, where she has returned from a couple months of helpful shock therapy to wean her from her insatiable cravings for food. It didn't work but Ethel can live with it so long as the grocery bill is paid. This in a neighborhood where groceries are delivered right to your door: Bacon, chops, cereal, eggs, plenty of ice cream & raw cookie dough.

The fun in this movie is twofold: First, watching Ethel slowly and in an almost Hitchcockian manner find herself pretty much needing to murder people to keep the flow of fatty, caloric foodstuffs coming -- and to silence any harping voices in the peanut gallery urging moderation. One of the things I like about how Ethel's character is drawn has to do with how profoundly unhip, square and uninvolved in the world she is. The deaths don't mean anything to her personally other than the need to hide the remains, which does become a problem after a while. But if it wasn't for her uncontrollable gluttony she could fit right at any social circle dedicated to the bitter & withdrawn. Like a Tool concert or maybe the MPAA. The other pleasure in the film is a guilty one, which is making fun of fat people. They are one of the last socially acceptable prejudices to have, since fat people are by nature absurd, greedy and unattractive pariahs now that one legged Eskimos with AIDS are off limits too. I'm playing devil's advocate with this one: Prejudice of any kind is a bad thing, especially when you get to know the target of your hatred as a person. The catch is that this movie doesn't really let you, keeping the viewer at arm's length observing her behavior and being welcomed to criticize or even outright laugh at her for being so disgusting. Watch her plow through a box of Nilla Wafers or scrape some extra eggs onto her plate to see what I mean. Since the film regards her as a freak and regards what she is doing with clinically detached disdain (killing people is worse than overeating, at least in my book) it's OK to regard her the same way. As a walking stomach.

Ridiculing someone for who they are is always more fun and safer in numbers, so ETHEL is actually quite a little crowd-pleaser and has a little cult following due to its short life as a Drive In curiosity or home rental oddity. It's hard to forget a movie like FAT CRAZY ETHEL, which once you get down to brass tacks is an exploitation film that is exploiting the obese & insane. Ethel is as sane as you or I, she just finds herself propelled down this path of antisocial behavior by her lust for food. The inevitability of it all is the payoff in a way, and while it may not be titillating to most to watch Ethel's life spiral out of control, the movie's utterly banal, humdrum and everyday look has a certain charm to it that fans of non-Hollywood "regional horror" will get a kick out of. And again the claustrophobia is hard to ignore, especially with a 350 pound woman occupying what little elbow room there is. That such a big woman is confined to such a teeny, tacky, unenjoyable house is half of what's scary about it: Imagine being stuck in there with her. Ick!

So it's behavioral horror where a person is defined by their behavior -- This is how 350 pound food addicts behave in the movies, taken to surreal heights of exaggeration that plays on our own paranoias. We all know the 300 pound shut in dysfunctional idiot up the block, we all suspect that something odd is going on behind closed doors that keeps them from sweating it off just via respiration, and here is an example of what they could be doing. It's almost a perfect little urban nightmare, and over quickly enough to allow viewers to also watch the comparatively awful & unredeemable FAT CRAZY ETHEL 2. If nothing else, that will help you appreciate what a taught little exercise in urban paranoia this is. It's ultra low budget and everyday reality production values may turn off viewers who rely on pyrotechnics or flying squirrels to enjoy a horror show, but give her a try especially in the company of friends and beer and snacks. Ethel gets her own bag.

6/10

CRIMINALLY INSANE (aka: CRAZY FAT ETHEL) stars the inimitable Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski, a rather rotund woman who is released from a mental hospital. Ethel is advised to drop a few pounds, which results in her consuming mass quantities of food, like whole packages of bacon and a loaf of bread with her dozen eggs for breakfast.

Ethel's nagging grandmother attempts to get her to "watch her figure". Ethel ponders this, while eating boxes of vanilla wafers. When granny locks up the food, Ethel takes offense, and takes out her frustration on granny with a big knife.

So begins Ethel's spiral into the abyss of hunger-driven, homicidal frenzy. As the bodies pile up, Ethel's madness explodes exponentially, while she eats and eats and eats.

The cheap, non-produced, barely-directed appearance of the film adds to its effectiveness. Ms. Alden plays her role with utter seriousness and conviction, making Ethel seem like more than the stereotypical lunatic. Even when she's polishing off a stack of sweet rolls or devouring an entire gallon of chocolate ice cream!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The character named John (Robert Copple), one of the most heinous jerks in schlock movie history! Bravo!

P.S.- Watch for George "Buck" Flower as the halfhearted police detective...