I had heard about 'Criminally Insane' (Though, to me...it'll always be known by its alternate title 'Crazy Fat Ethel') for years amongst the B-movie and cult enthusiast circles as a HELL of an oddity of a picture. So when Vinegar Syndrome recently announced a ground up HD remaster of the thing, OF COURSE I pounced on it to see what all the Hubbub was about...Frankly, I wasnt dissapointed.
The plots pretty much as simple and bizarre as it can be. The film follows 'Ethel' a morbidly obese woman who's spent a number of years in a mental facility due to her psychotic episodes. After managing to subdue her with a combination of drugs and electro shock therapy. The doctors decide to release Ethel back into the custody of her grandmother. The doctors give careful instruction on how to take care of Ethel, alongside the suggestion that she start to seriously consider losing some weight, due to the strain it puts on her heart...
This will prove to be the catalyst for which the rest of the film unfolds. As, on returning home, Ethel almost immediatley goes into a feeding frenzy happily consuming entire ice cream cakes, and whole large packs of bacon with boxes of eggs. Her grandmother decides enough is enough and locks the food in a cupboard. Informing Ethel that she wont be allowed to snack between meals anymore AND that she'll live on 'modest portion sizes' till her weight starts to come down.
Ethels response to this is to accuse her grandmother of attmepting to 'Starve her to death' before she picks up a kitchen knife and murders the poor lady, stealing back the key to the cupboard and eating the entire pantry in one sitting.
And...what follows from that is essentially Ethel trying to cover up her initial murder by murdering even more people in a hunger induced rage. While her sister Rosalie (who has returned to the house to lay low after escaping an abusive relationship) decides to use the place to work her 'trade'.
And...thats basically the movie. Theres not much in the way of complexity, next to no nuance. Its essentially a bit of a proto slasher, with a one note fat joke embedded in it, running on dialogue that would make John Waters rise for applause.
The scripts ultra basic, the act structuring is pretty uneven. the opening act is fine enough, but, for me? This films biggest problem is that it gets into the second act (around the time Rosalie turns up and starts turning tricks) and the film just...locks into a pace and energy and never breaks out above or below that pace. It quickly becomes padded monotonous and repetative.
It has its moments here and there, but it feels very much like its stalling for time right up until the 3rd act...Which is basically the last 10 minutes or so of the film where they remember that this is a movie where they're ALLOWED to have fun, and they just about stick the landing. With an abrupt cut to credits that made me audibly roar with laughter.
Idling for 30 minutes is a real shame here. But mercifully, everything else is pretty much how I wanted this to play out. its got a comedic, macarbre tone. the dialogue is SO rough and pacey, it reminds me of films like 'The Baby' or 'Female Trouble' for its ability to just throw out the most BIZARRE lines, scattergun style...it really does become a case of 'Where do I even begin?!'
The characters are a little flat and one note, but mercifully that one note is campy and mesmorisingly strange. Seriously, this one doesnt let up. constantly pushing the characters into bizarre happenings and with both lines and line deliveries that frankly have to be seen to be believed. The second act may feel slow and repetative, but the quality of the characters on hand more than helped pull me back on track.
Due to the lopsided act structuring the pacing is a bit hit and miss, when its on a role, its superb. But when the film crawls, the pacing matches its speed and my mind quickly wandered to my emails quite frankly...Not that you're going to miss anything here. Its a plus size woman mudering people in a psychotic blind rage whenever she gets hungry...it's hardly Chaucer.
Technically? this things a bust. and EASILY the worst aspect of this produciton. Based on the 'Apology' note at the opening of Vinegar syndromes release for this one, it feels less like this film was 'lovingly remastered' and more like it was 'recovered from oblivion' Which does make it hard to gauge how much of whats here is poor direction/post work and how much of it is 'This film was literally found unspooled in trash liners, where they'd sat for 30+ years...its a wonder they survive.'
Frankly speaking, the direction feels like someones first ever attempt at making a movie...which, given Nick Millard up to this point had basically almost exclusively worked in the adult film industry...I could believe this may have ACTUALLY been his first attempt at trying to string together a coherent narrative using his own creative vision.
scene construction here is an after thought. It feels like they planned a scene out on the day with no paperwork or thought as to whether it would cut together in post, they shot what felt right rather than what would work and then shoved it together as best they could.
As a result, nothing really feels quite cohesive, shots just kind of...happen. it feels mindlessly composed, with only a handful of shots seemingly consisdered...and thats less because Millard had something to say, and more because it couldnt 'technically' be shot in any other way.
As a result theres a lot of slow motion shots, repeating shots over and over again, weird effects like inverting the film, and instances of cuts overlapping poorly (though...how intentional that was is probably up for debate). Its bad. It doesnt really show creative story telling through the visuals...But. I need remind you that this film is called 'Crazy Fat Ethel.' I think you get the picture.
On the cine? its pretty poor, due to the lack of thought that went into the direction, shots are poorly composed, dont seem to have dominant subjects for a decent chunk of the runtime, and B-roll is almost exclusively saved for 'kill scenes' and thats it. NO time was taken to block sequences or work with 'the line'. While it DOES have its moments here and there shot wise. im not 100% convinced Millard INTENTIONALLY planned any meaning behind this setup. with the one or two good shots being more 'happy accidents' than anything else.
As an editor...the edit made me wince. NO timed cuts, NO consideration for B-roll, NON of the match cuts ACTUALLY match. Everything cuts way too early. theres an EYEWATERING sequence near the beginning where Ethels Grandma goes to visit the doctor to get an update on her that could quite easily cause whiplash and a nosebleed given how fast the cuts between shots are. It feels like someone who's never edited before in their life just decided to 'have a go'. And given the chronic state of the direction, cine and lack of B-roll...I feel even a veteran would have REALLY struggled to make this thing hold together well...So to see someone just 'attempt' to put this thing together is frankly painful to me.
Pricilla Alden is ESSENTIAL to why you need to see this film. She has a wonderful grit and earthy 'thud' to her line deliveries which are entirely charasmatic and interesting...Honestly, I fell in love with her performance here, its a character piece and she nails the brief PERFECTLY. shes also surprisingly spry clearing a staircase multiple times without so much as a wheeze which, given I too am a 'big boy' I found VERY impressive.
The rest of the cast all basically feel like they were B-characters that fell off the truck of a Grindhouse flick. Not exactly 'unremarkable', but when you have such a strong performance in the form of Pricilla, its always going to take a bit of the shine away.
The soundtrack is a bleepy bloopy mess. and, for some reason, much like the edit. the sound edit on this thing is atrocious. theres a full 30 second segment at the beginning of this film where the audio is entirely missing...Noone knows where it went, and Vinegar Syndrome traced it back to the print used to make the copies that were distributed...So this was very likely an issue on the original print too...the adr works terrible, the sound effect work is poor...its frankly quite hilarious.
'Criminally Insane' is an incompitent production. Im quite confident of that. But the utter charm it has in its characters, scenarios and simplicity made it a feature I really, honestly quite enjoyed. a PRIME film to watch with friends and beers, I think this would pair up well with a John Waters movie or maybe something like 'The Baby' I think this one will grow on me even more over time. Its a TERRIBLE production on a technical level. but utterly watchable on a story and performance level. Definitely recommended.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/criminally-insane/
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