Criminally Insane 2

The first movie is pretty good. This one is pretty bad.

Recycles a lot of footage (including the opening credits and end title) from Criminally Insane. The new footage, shot on video, really sticks out as poorly done. Scenes lack proper lighting, the sound is sometimes nearly inaudible, there's even video glitches like the picture rolling and so on.

Like all bad sequels, it basically just repeats the story of the first one. Ethel kills everybody who shares her living space, often for reasons having to do with them getting in the way of food she wants.

At least it is only an extra on the DVD for the first one, which also includes the same director's film Satan's Black Wedding. Too bad it doesn't include the Death Nurse movies though.

There are some bad movies out there. Most of them are rather fun. "Criminally Insane 1" was one of those flicks. So bad that it was enjoyable and had re-watch value to it. "Criminally Insane 2" has to be one of the worst movies ever made and coming from me, that's saying a lot because I am not the type of person to say anything is the worst. But trust me, this was just completely awful and running just 1 hour is 1 hour too long.

The movie has a rather incoherent storyline, but who cares about story when all you want to see is a big fat woman running around killing people because she isn't being fed. Well, you don't see that in this movie, except for all of the flashback sequences that are from the first one. The new storyline could have been really funny with Ethel being sent to a halfway house and murdering everyone in there, but nothing happens until the last 20 minutes of the movie and at that point you are already falling asleep.

The camera work in this movie is just atrocious. This literally reminds me of something I shot with friends of mine back when I was 15. The sound quality is something else as you can't understand a word most of the characters are saying. To give an example of how bad it is, go into a New York Subway and try to understand what is being said over the loud speakers, that is what this movie sounds like. Not that it matters what they are talking about anyway because the actors are about as dry as a dead piece of wood.

Now I know that saying this is the worst movie out there is pretty harsh but words can't describe just how bad this movie is. If you don't believe me, see it for yourself. 1/10

During the cheap filmed in video beginning of Crazy Fat Ethel II, I wondered if it was the same film that was on the cover. Unfortunately, it was. The story itself is mindlessly simple. Ethel, a homicidal maniac with an eating disorder, is released into a halfway house because of hospital overcrowding. She is by far the most sane resident watching while one man puts dead flies into another's soup. Ethel is then teased by one of the halfway house employees with a chocolate bar after he hits on the cost cutting measure of feeding the residents dog food. Ethel retaliates by strangling him with a wire noose on the stairs and then....well, you get the idea. If this all sounds like fun, it isn't. This film was poorly made with cheap effects and even worse acting. The characters are so wooden when delivering their lines that they should be standing out in front of a cigar store. To make matters worse, half of the film consists of flashbacks to the first Ethel movie, Criminally Insane, which is little better. A VERY poor effort.

Due to budget cuts, Ethel Janowski (again played by Priscilla Alden) is released from a mental institution (even though she killed six people) and delivered to the Hope Bartholomew halfway house. Once there, she immediately relapses into her criminally insane ways and kills anyone who gets between her and her food.

HOLY MOLY! Does this movie suck! You know you are in trouble when the open credits start up and they are just the credits from the first film, apparently filmed off a TV screen. Nick Millard (under his pseudonym Nick Phillips) decided to return to the world of Crazy Fat Ethel over ten years later and with a budget that probably covered the cost of a blank tape and a video camera rental for the weekend. Let's just say that Millard's unique style doesn't translate well to video. Seriously, I have made home movies with more production value than this. And Millard tries to pull a SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 2 by padding half the running time with footage from the first film (which looks like it was taken off a worn VHS copy). Alden is again good as Ethel but the film is so inept that you start to feel sorry for her for starring in this garbage. I mean, at least the first film tried. Here we have no music, weaker effects (if that is at all possible), shaky camera work, horrible audio and editing that looks like it was done with two VCRs hooked up. Avoid this at all costs!

It's not a surprise that "Criminally Insane 2" makes the original look better because face it, belated and unnecessary sequels to cult classics often fail to deliver. However, things go further than that: "Criminally Insane 2" actually manages to make the original look expensive! Part 1 only cost $30000 to make, but this one seems like it's literally made for nothing. To give you a rough idea about how much money and effort making this movie took: the opening credit sequence is just the "Criminally Insane" credits taped of a TV screen. Yikes. There wasn't even any money for actual film this time around either, so writer/director Nick Millard actually resorts to shooting the whole thing with a freaking camcorder. Well, the whole thing...that's not entirely true, given that about half of the movie is stock footage from the first one (cleverly disguised as Ethel's dreams). There's roughly 35 minutes worth of new stuff (presumably all filmed in one afternoon), and each second of it makes you want to burn something down. Your "new" story only lasts half an hour, how the hell can it be so mind-numbingly boring? It's truly unbelievable how much this movie drags, these boring, faceless characters take forever to die. And even when Ethel finally kills them all, she does it in aggravatingly lame ways. This isn't just a lackluster sequel, this is nothing more than a scam. It's sad something like this can be so widely distributed, let's just pretend it never happened.