Criminally Insane

Vile, crude, disgusting, hideous, degrading, nonsensical: "Criminally Insane" (AKA "Crazy Fat Ethel". Seriously.) is a movie that just has it all. It's a bewildering exercise in bad taste, merely watching it makes you feel like you desperately need to take a shower. Furthermore, it has the unique ability to make everything some people hate about Z-grade schlock into a merit. Just take the film stock this movie is shot on, for example. It looks like someone was embalmed in it, but that's exactly how you want it to look. Forget about the pretty colors and high definition, this right here is what it's all about. The actors also add a lot to the general uncomfortable atmosphere: Priscilla Alden is great as the deadpan lead, but the bit characters are actually just as good. The spineless Sarah Jessica Parker-faced sister who just for the hell of it is also a prostitute, her abusive make-up wearing boyfriend/pimp, the random drunk dude (a sadly brief cameo), the shock therapist, the oddball police inspector, you don't want any of these people living next door. Oh, and then there's the dialogue. This script is so full of gems that it's hard to keep up, can humor get any darker than this? I don't know how "Criminally Insane" was ever intended, but the finished product is incredibly awesome. Dig it up if you can, it's totally worth it.

CRIMINALLY INSANE is a real treat for cult horror fans. Don't get me wrong, it is no classic and plays like a low rent H.G. Lewis film (yes, you read that right) but there is just something inherently appealing about this film.

The story is incredibly simple (Ethel kills nearly everyone she encounters) with few surprises (the end is a shocker though) but the film is infused with some great moments of black humor. The star of the film is, of course, Priscilla Alden as the criminally insane Ethel. I will stand my ground when I say the film's success rests firmly on her shoulders. Scenes of her repeatedly stabbing her grandmother while yelling, "I want that key! I want that key!" or her taking out a grocery store delivery boy are played perfectly. Despite Millard's claim that the got professional actors from Los Angeles, this is strictly amateur hour (sharp eyed viewers will catch a clean shaved George "Buck" Flower in there though). Strangely, all of this works to the film's benefit, creating some incredibly surreal moments.

The film is filled with plenty of these "what the hell" moments. For instance, Ethel's sister Rosalie and her abusive boyfriend John move in. During a bedroom romp, John explains to Rosalie that he beats her because "baby, sometime you need to be beaten." How does she react to this misogynist viewpoint? Why by embracing him and giving him a kiss! The film is incredibly cheap and Millard makes no bones about it. In fact, he is oddly proud of what appears on screen for his $30,000 ("the biggest budget I have ever had," he claims). Watching this type of "do it yourself" cinema reminds me of the aforementioned H.G. Lewis, the cult films from Something Weird or Frank Henenlotter's debut BASKET CASE. It may not be pretty but it is definitely entertaining.

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

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.

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).