Crazy Fat Ethel

Right, obviously I had never heard about this 2016 horror comedy titled "Crazy Fat Ethel" prior to sitting down to watch it. And once the movie started, everything seemed oddly familiar. And then it dawned on me, that the events in this movie were the same events as in the 1975 movie "Criminally Insane". Why director Brian Dorton opted to remake "Criminally Insane", as it was a lousy movie in itself, is just simply beyond my comprehension.

However, I will say that the writer and director Brian Dorton took the original writer and director Nick Millard's material from the 1975 movie "Criminally Insane" and just turned into the same type of boring dung. Yup, this 2016 movie was every bit as boring, pointless, amateurish and sluggish as the original movie. But couldn't that be considered an achievement in itself?

Of course I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But I can't claim to say that I was impressed with what I witnessed. Nay, the acting performances in this 2016 remake were amateurish, wooden and devoid of commitment.

Visually, then of course "Crazy Fat Ethel" was a notch better than "Criminally Insane", given the years in between them. But you're not in for anything grand here.

I couldn't finish this movie, as it was every bit as pointless, laughable and not entertaining as the original movie. And this is not a movie that I will return to attempt finish watching. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend you to waste your time, money or effort on.

My rating of "Crazy Fat Ethel" lands on a two out of ten stars.

Crazy Fat Ethel is not your traditional gross-out horror feature; rather, it deliberately veers into controversial, repulsive territory - at which is succeeds. I would liken it to Grindhouse material in its style, and fresh in its execution.

Inappropriate in so many ways, there is something deliciously satisfying about this junk movie. The acting is actually watchable -- realist/naturalist kind of stuff, with these offhand gestures that really lets you smell the cheese. Maybe i was just in the mood. Nice, clean narrative line. I think these guys could all have done better work if they'd wanted to

Lose remake of Criminally Insane It's not a bad remake Slight differences mostly more sexual It's defininatelty got some soft porn Skinamax type scenes and Ethel gets raped at the hospital she's staying in before being released from the mental hospital A couple kills were pretty creative Mostly when the woman who's delivering groceries and wants to be paid Ethel hits her with a wine bottle then sticks the neck of the wine bottle up her lady parts and stomps on the bottom of the bottle and there's like a explosion of blood That to me was the wildest kill But the problem is the kills aren't done very well I can't really complain about it being low budget because the first two movies were as well But somehow this manages to feel and be even lower budget Think public domain type quality I don't know it's okay for what it is I just think the movie is trying too hard and for me it just doesn't work as well.

With no disrespect to writer director Nick Millard, the original director of Criminally Insane (1975) the film that Crazy Fat Ethel is based on, but this remake does everything right that the original got wrong. First, the blood and gore effects in the original are notoriously bad. With this version they are very real and gory. The effect go as far as the bloodiest Italian horror films from the 70's and 80's. Well done. The acting is up to par which is worth mentioning and even praising due to the crowed independent film genre being known for lacking in that department. The original film is 61 mins. Here we get 20 mins more and writer director Brian Dorton uses this extra time wisely for character development. Ethel is smarter and even more dangerous. Keep in mind the original is one of my favourite exploitation drive-in films from my day. I got the bluray off ebay thinking it was the original with the CFE title. I'm glad I did because otherwise I wouldn't have know there was a remake.