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Very strange, and quite funny little movie about a gay couple hiding out, one of them wanted for murder, which the other one is responsible for. One is a coke snorting hippie, the other one a Psycho killer in drag, mayhem and b.movie weirdness follows. Give it a chance if you like obscure 70´ movies.

A 70's B-movie about a transvestite from Baltimore, who's on the run from the law??? Sounds good to me. Actually, Aunt Martha (Paul) is only wearing the female garb, as a disguise. It's not like he's really into it, or anything... Alright, fine, maybe a little. Aunt Ma-I mean Paul pretends to be the possessive aunt of his partner-in-crime (Stanley), but when nobody's around, he drops the "aunt" but flat-out refuses to drop possessiveness. So, it's pretty obvious this high-strung fellow has a few problems. Or maybe they're just boyfriends, I'm not sure.maybe Paul just thinks they are, or maybe Stanley just isn't a very good one. Stanley is a bit of a rascal. Always rebelling against his "partner"-in-crime/pseudo-aunt, who's either screaming at him about smoking weed, or chasing him around with scissors, since he refuses to get a hair cut. Seeing Paul get so worked up amuses Stanley to no end, which is what makes this movie so entertaining. Well, that and all the murders. Not exactly an epic, but terribly over-looked, considering this movie is apart of the Florida Exploitation boom of the 60's and early 70's, which gave us such inept gold as Blood Freak and Two Thousand Maniacs. Yet another potential classic still not released on DVD. I would think Something Weird Video would have stepped up long before now. It would just seem right. Perhaps Subversive is interested. Anyone who digs Herschell Gordon Lewis Exploitation from the 60's and John Waters trash from the 70's seriously needs to see this. Not that there's any gore or anything really, really disgusting involved. I guess you'll just have to settle for odd and hilarious, which totally beats boring and dull any day of the week. Anyone itching for some obscure/vintage cult cinema will be more than satisfied with Aunt Martha. And that, B-movie fans, is a guarantee. 8/10

"Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things" is a guilty pleasure, pure and simple. While in some ways a terrible film, it is nevertheless fun to watch and enjoyable...provided you are a bit twisted!

Paul and Stanley are lovers and to the outside world they are Aunt Martha and her nephew, Stanley. What?! Well, it seems Paul is a homicidal maniac and is wanted by the police for his many atrocitites. Yes, Paul is an angry guy who has the bad habit of murdering any lady who pays attention to Stanley...because Stanley is his. As for Stanley, he's not homicidal but he is a bit of an idiot. Together, you know that sooner or later the law will catch up to them.

The acting is often cheesy and the production looks like it was made for next to nothing. Yet, inexplicably, it is funny in a strange way...almost like a John Waters film. Worth seeing IF you are an oddball...like me. Otherwise, you'll probably find it all pretty sick and stupid.

By the way, if you want to see it, understand that there is a fair amount of nudity in addition to all the killing...so it's NOT a film I'd recommend to kids or your mother.

The idea of this film seems interesting enough. Paul and Stanley are two gay jewel thieves. Paul dresses up as "Aunt Martha", Stanley's supposed aunt. This is done to evade authorities, as it happens to be they are wanted for murder. Stanley is also a big time hippie who drives a colorful van, picks up the girls and does a lot of coke. Paul hates it when Stanley brings home girls and goes psycho each time, killing the female guest. The premise is original and entertaining enough to be a classic yet the movie misses it's mark. It's not really the fault of the cast, they do a good job. It's the screenplay and the development of the plot, after the initial set up, the film falls a little flat and fails to live up to it's potential. I would still recommend this one though, if you enjoy obscure strange films.

Going by the date, poster and title, I had assumed that Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things would be a dark comedy/horror in the same vein as What's the Matter with Helen? (1971) and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972). I couldn't have been more wrong: what we actually have here is an independent '70s exploitation oddity that is hard to pigeon-hole because of its sheer lunacy. All I can say is that it is a one of a kind movie - and that's probably a good thing, 'cos I wouldn't want to stumble upon another like it.

Abe Zwick and Wayne Crawford star as escaped criminals Paul and Stanley, who have gone into hiding in Miami, Paul dressing in drag to pose as 'Aunt Martha' while youngster Stanley pretends to be Martha's nephew. As Paul looks after the house (he really does enjoy being Martha!), Stanley gets high on dope and attracts the attention of all the pretty girls in the neighbourhood, who want to get into his flared snakeskin pants. Stanley freaks out whenever the girls go for his groin, and pushes them away, but this still doesn't stop Paul from becoming jealous (it is implied that he and Stanley are lovers) and, in a frenzy of bad editing, getting all stabby with his kitchen knife.

When Stanley invites junkie Hubert (Don Craig) to stay for a while, Paul becomes even more twitchy, untrusting of his new house guest; and rightly so, for Hubert is on the hunt for the stash of stolen jewellery that Paul has hidden in the fireplace.

The sole directorial credit for Thomas Casey - and it's not hard to see why - Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is a cheap, poorly directed, shoddily compiled and badly acted piece of hippie trash that can only be of interest to those who actively seek out obscure cinematic garbage of the most inept kind, or those who took part in its creation.

2/10 for the gratuitous nudity from several groovy young ladies, and that's being generous.

The most positive thing I can say about this film is that it is that little bit different, that the two leads work their socks off and there is decent use of soundtrack music. Indeed the final minutes are really quite good as we reach a climax in a film studio and things almost get quite tense. The same cannot be said for the rest of this no budget outing without a story. I can see that maybe it appeared, maybe even was, a good idea to have a pair of guys on the run holed up with one of them adopting women's clothes as a disguise but for how long is this going to be amusing to anyone watching? As I say the two leads are really pretty good but the supporting cast is nowhere to be seen, limp hardly the word, but then the dialogue they are given is crap. Perhaps the most unforgivable aspect to this would be slasher is that the gory scenes are covered over with colour washes so that the impact is nullified, I wonder whose stupid idea that was. So we are left with very little other than some amusement and a decent ending. Trouble is we are waiting for that ending for what seems ages.

The most dreadful thing Aunt Martha does is bring you this film.

There is only one redeeming object in the entire show. Nestled within the story is a modest seed of a story concept - one I may use for a story I have in mind. Crooks on the run from the law take to lying low in a Motel. While there, one of them dresses as a woman, Aunt Martha, so he can move about freely to assess the situation and keep tabs on the cops.

The concept offers lots of possibilities. Using a few of the options would enhance both story and film a hundredfold. Unfortunately, what writer and director Thomas Casey gives us is pure tedium. The story is lazily written and underdeveloped. It's a hodgepodge of a tale about a psychopath and his partner in crime and... sex. The progression and motives for the murders are clear, although most are unrealistic. And Casey presents them to us in a mundane matter-of-fact manner.

The lack of substance doesn't end with Paul or Martha's characterisations. It bleeds through to the story. There's not enough in this film to keep your attention on the screen. I found myself constantly looking away, and I even turned on the dreaded laptop - the killer of all focus.

Casey is worse at directing than writing; there was little hope for this flick. He takes a point-and-shoot stance to the filming and has little to no consideration for the pace of the film. The end product is little more than a straight-forward and often uninteresting rendition of an awful story.

At least the actor who played Paul's partner, Stanley, appears to have had a joyous time. Wayne Crawford isn't a marvellous actor, but he instils Stanley with an impish temperament. It lifts the direness of the movie, but not enough.

I would suggest steering well clear of this turkey - even at Thanksgiving. Though if a copy creeps up on you, then do the world a favour and bury it in a deep hole under the patio in your garden. Or slip it quietly through a horrid neighbours letterbox.

Ratings: Story 0.75 : Direction 0.5 : Pace 0.5 : Acting 1 : Enjoyment 0.5 Total 3.25 out of 10.

Now click on through to my Chiller Thriller Killers list to see where the turkey and Aunt Martha charted... but better yet, to find something better for your viewing pleasure.

Take Care and Stay Well.

Haha, what a great little movie! Wayne Crawford strikes again, or rather this was his first big strike, a deliriously entertaining little ball of manic kitsch energy masquerading as a psycho killer movie. It's actually a **brilliant** satire on post-hippie American culture in flyover country, though the movie was actually filmed independently in Miami. It defies any kind of studio oriented convention or plot device that I can think of: SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS may not be a very technically adept movie, but it is a wonderful little slice of Americana, made on the cheap by people who were honest, ambitious, imaginative and had balls made out of steel. It took guts, nerve and guile to make this movie, which amazingly appears to have stood the test of time. This movie is fresh, vital, alive, unforgettable, and charmingly weird enough to recommend to just about anyone with a sense of humor.

I dug up last year during a period of time when I was fascinated by "star" Wayne Crawford (here billed under his pseudonym Scott Lawrence), a maestro of what can only be called regional film-making, usually of the B grade variety. He's a writer, producer, director, and actor all in one, probably best known for the 80s teen apocalyptic favorite NIGHT OF THE COMET. Here he plays Stanley, the pants wearing half of a couple of truly marvelous characters, apparently homosexual spree killers on the lam after knocking off some old lady in Baltimore for her jewelry. Unsung screen legend Abe Zwick is completely convincing as Paul, who poses as Stanley's Aunt Martha, the cross dressing brains of the outfit who has conned Stanley into thinking he's committed murder to ensure his loyalty. Martha looks about as feminine as the sailors from SOUTH PACIFIC's supporting choir in their coconut bikini tops, yet somehow nobody seems to notice -- or care? -- that she is a he, has no visible means of income, seems to spend all day fretting about where Stanley is, and scurries around the neighborhood in her bathrobe carrying a butcher's knife. Only in America ...

As the film opens the two of them have just arrived in Florida and set up residence in what looks like Ward Cleaver's old house, a garishly lit & designed television home that is so cliché as to be surreal. During one memorable scene Martha and an unwelcome house guest sit on the couch, talk problems and drink cans of Budweiser in what is one of the most mesmerizing, subversively ordinary sequences I've ever seen outside of a John Waters movie. Then there's Stanley, always getting into trouble as he is a mop topped hippie with an STP patch on his vest who drives a psychedelic painted van that's about as subtle as the Batmobile, drinks his milk straight from the carton, snorts drugs with blond bombshell bimbos, and hoards donuts in an old cigar box for a quick snack. Opposites attract, I guess.

But Stanley also has a thing about not liking it when the young ladies he gets stoned with try to remove his pants, and it always seems to be up to Aunt Martha to get him out of the trouble that inevitably results. The bodies pile up, a nosy junkie blackmails them into using their house as a flop, Stanley's birthday cake gets squashed, and everybody meets down at the local pizza shop before heading to the wood shed on the back property for a hookah hash party where the girls dance in their underwear. Things get out of hand when one of the neighbors tries to get a bit too chummy with Martha, who naturally prefers to keep people at an arm's length when they rudely invite themselves over for a nice chat. And this is a woman who carries not just a butcher knife but a loaded .38 in her slip. Eventually the strange duo find themselves stuck with a body, a baby, and no place to go, and end up taking refuge at an abandoned movie studio where no doubt the technical crew borrowed the equipment used to make the film. I just hope they politely asked for permission first and cleaned up after themselves.

A word of course must be said about Stanley and Martha/Paul's relationship, since to dance around the fact that the two are at least suggested to be a homosexual couple would be to miss the primary gist of the plot. We never see the two of them get intimate and indeed even though Stanley mockingly refers to being "balled" in one scene, their relationship is more symbiotic than sexual. It certainly isn't a "gay" movie, with abundant female nudity and an air of 70s misogyny that cannot be denied either. Stanley & Paul never consummating their implied sexuality on screen, even though the movie certainly would have had the guts to do so if it were important. It isn't, the story isn't about their sex, it's about the bond they share, and how weird it is. Not their being gay, but their being the distinct individuals they are, who are two of the strangest movie creations ever to inhabit my TV set.

The film is unique. It was made for only a few thousand dollars on what look like borrowed studio sets, the occasional location work, and an couple of public locations they managed to sneak a camera crew into when nobody was looking. The dialog is completely bizarre, mundane and delightfully esoteric. It's a movie that will take you by surprise, not everyone will like it but for those with a taste for low budget American horror/thrillers like THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED, HELP ME! I'M POSSESSED, BLOOD & LACE and CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, you've got yourself a winner here.

8/10: Usually I'd say something like "Deserves a DVD restoration" but somehow I think doing so would ruin the movie's tacky ambiance. And Wayne Crawford, you, sir, rule.

Stanley and Paul, a pair of friends on the run from the law, rent a house in the suburbs, where they decide the best way to lay low is for Paul to dress as a woman and pretend to be Stanley's Aunt Martha. Not too long after the pair move into their new home, Paul suddenly murders a young woman Stanley brings home with him. Paul's violent tendencies continue to spin out of control, and soon nobody who comes near is safe from him.

This movie is horrible. One professional review I read said these are two gay guys. They are not. The bruiser, Jerry, keeps having sex with girls. The other guy dresses in drag to avoid being noticed.

There isn't even a suggestion that he is gay. But getting back on track, the movie has no reason to exist. It's dumb. The acting is just OK, but the script is as idiotic as the directing. It just rambles on and on, making no sense whatsoever.

It's dismal and not even worthy of "cult" status.

Don't be deceived by the misleading title, because the truth is that Aunt Martha CONSTANTLY does dreadful things. In fact, "Aunt Martha" is one badass brick of a Bea Arthur lookin' transvestite who's on the lam after robbing a bank, and living incognito with Stanley, "her" virile, but dope-addled lover/accomplice. And while she may seem like a charm-schooled and self composed hostess, Aunt Martha's infernal hostilities are easily roused by the winsome young girls who follow Stanley home from time to time. Quick to exterminate these potential threats in a variety of gruesome ways, Aunt Martha proves herself a most formidable adversary when it comes to competing for Stanley's affections.

Delightfully off-hand weirdness, AUNT MARTHA is archetypal of the anything-goes craziness of low-budget 70s cinema...a film so abstractly imagined and impulsively realized, it alights with a desultory otherness so reverently sincere that it steals a place in your heart usually reserved for awkwardly cross-bred puppies. Forgivable of its general inelegance, this is a fine specimen of a most exiguous film species.

7/10.

Poorly shot, written, staged, acted, lit, edited... you name it. The premise is okay, but everything just falls so flat that you can't get into it. If they'd just toned down the acting a touch to be believable it may have saved it, but it was so over-dramatic that you couldn't help but laugh at how bad it all was.

The working title was: "Don't Spank Baby".

Wayne Crawford went on to become a successful producer, films like Valley Girl, Night of the Comet and others, even though he wasn't too terrific in this little Gem. And little known Abe Zwick should have gotten tons of work from this film but didn't. Filmed at Moberly Studios in Hollywood Florida, on the same lot the early Tarzan movies were filmed. This film is definitely for those who appreciate the abstract. The movie was originally shot with much more bloody graphic slasher scenes. For reasons only known to Tom Casey the Director, the bloody slasher scenes were given a tab of LSD, and replaced by Flash Editing. Even though this version is worthy of a look for those so inclined, in my opinion the original version would have packed the punch needed to make this a full on Slasher 70's Cult Classic.

Funny and at times hilariously sick. The film has blood, guts, nudity, and laughter. Jewel thieves from Chicago hiding out in Florida, waiting to make their next move. They get distracted by junkies, nosey neighbors and drugs and booze. There is also, let's say the complicated relationship between the two thieves. It does not take long before the police are on the alert to "Aunt Martha" and nephew Stanley. Under the right conditions these two characters could have been worked into a weekly comedy TV series. Filmed in Florida at a now defunct motion picture studio. This film is a grind house camp classic.

This one of the scariest movies ever. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is not a 6 out of 10. It is a 9 out of 10. This movie is underrated. This is scarier then The silence of the lambs could ever be.

Ordering movies by odd titles has always been a thing with me. Imagine my surprise when I got this one in the mail! You're never really sure at the beginning if Abe Zwick is supposed to be a man or woman. Then when he answers the phone at his house he says in a soft, feminine voice, "hello?" He repeats it once more. Then his face contorts into a frown and in a deep, bass voice says, "STANLEY!" (Stanley being his boyfriend who always ends up hooking up with women, even though he's gay). That scene sets the tone for the film and it's the two leads, Paul and Stanley who set the energetic tone of the film. This is a must see for any lover of bad films. On an interesting side note, Paul (played by Abe Zwick) looks a lot like a young Andy Kaufman.