User reviews

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 But if it wasn't for her uncontrollable gluttony she could fit right at any social circle dedicated to the bitter & withdrawn.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

Barely an hour long, this has got to be one of the worst horror films of the 70s. Ethel is fat, crazy and hungry for blood in this dreary minimalist gore film. The cast is made up of some of the ugliest people in recent memory, the classical/experimental music score is annoying and of course the acting is atrociously BAD!! Millard's "directing" is completely devoid of style and/or talent, except for an entertaining nightmare sequence where Ethel chops up a bloody mannequin while director Millard indulges in using negative image effects. The blood does flow freely but is way below the standard of your average H.G. Lewis film. If you can make it through this movie try watching the sequel. It's twice as bad as this!!!

This movie is funny for all the wrong reasons - the horrible acting, the lamentable special effects, the bizarre music, and the $.57 budget. However, if you're in the mood for something a little, uh, offbeat and darkly comic, watch this. I have honestly never seen anything funnier than "Criminally Insane" and I would recommend it for anybody who likes the weird, cheap, and hysterical.

Directed by Nick Millard, this miserable z-grade trash-fest stars obese 'actress' Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski, a depressed paranoiac with anger issues and a very large appetite, who is released from a mental hospital under the care of her grandmother. But when granny locks the food away from her gluttonous granddaughter, Ethel snaps, embarking on a bloody killing spree.

As much as I appreciate really bad movies, I do draw the line somewhere; Criminally Insane hauls it's lamentable lard-ass well over that line and continues to waddle on, offending at every turn, not with its content, but by its sheer technical ineptitude in almost every department. With a terrible script, not one appealing character, amateurish direction, editing that is more of a butcher job than any of Ethel's murders, and the most unrealistic gore imaginable (the blood looks like red emulsion, probably because it is), I didn't find this to be a case of 'so bad it's good'… just plain bad.

I rate Criminally Insane 2/10 only because I've heard that the 1987 sequel is worse and I want to be able to rate that even lower if necessary.

Ha Ha Ha... Also known under the much funnier title of "Crazy Fat Ethel" (or some similar variant), this is a pretty bad sleaze film about a psychotic obese woman of little tolerance who bludgeons anyone who gets in her way by trying to tell her what to do with her life (like stopping eating like a fat gluttonous pig for one thing). She then piles up her ever-mounting corpse collection in a spare room and has to keep buying air freshener to hide the odor! As if all this wasn't bad enough, the acting and directing are all terrible, yet fans of such exploitation crud may get a chuckle.

* out of ****

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).

This movie was so scary that it kept me up for almost 3 months.

The intense action and tension was just horrific on levels you can't even imagine.

Ethel has to be the most terrifying person to ever grace the screen and you have to think and remind yourself that it's only a movie and not actually real.

The fear she brings to the screen is never before seen and will probably never will be seen again.

Her sinister laughter reminds us how truley evil and horrific of a person she really is and how it is a miracle that you don't die in your chair watching this bloodfest as she is carving up everybody and eats them.

The blood splatter in her house is sheer terror because her fantastic performace enables us to believe on levels we can't evven comprehend - of how good of an actress she really is - and so is everybody else in this masterpiece of terror.

The music score is certainly spine-chilling, as are the makeup and special effects. The editing and camera work is beyond top notch and all film schools globally should be teaching this technique of skillful precision.

Direction that only one of the finest masters can conceive, brilliant locations, a script that must have taken 45 years to develop and mould into what is possibly one of history's finest films to ever be produced.

Makeup and wardrobe is the best you ever will see anywhere and the casting of course can never be matched on any level.

If you are seeking tension, horror and anything else that the best movie can ever have - then this is the movie to watch...even the cover artwork assures you of the skill required to develop such a fine piece of cinema.

For the next 10 000 years to come, you may never see a film so well balanced as this...so invite all your friends and family members, neighbours and coworkers to enjoy only one of the best movies ever made and ever to be made.

You will want to watch it at least 8 times in a row to really grasp how intense this is.

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 an effective horror film, so anything else you'd like to call it (such as tasteless or crude or exploitative) is superfluous. Director Nick Millard might not have had any money, but he had intelligence and heart and a flair for storytelling--and he obtained a bravura performance from Priscilla Alden as Ethel. (Also good are Lisa Farros as Ethel's pitiable sister and George 'Buck' Flower as the businesslike cop.) In anyone else's hands a movie like this would have become a hopeless grotesquerie, but Millard gave it psychological depth; you'll find yourself wondering what he might have been able to do with an actual budget as you watch the jarring fantasy scenes near the end. One of the best American films of its type, right up there with David Durston's "I Drink Your Blood".

The first time I have heard of this title was in an review by The cinema snob. Judging from his review, I saw how bad this movie was. I than looked for the full movie. And OH MY GOD WAS THIS MOVIE BAD.

I will now explain the story. You see that this review has no spoiler warning, because you can tell the plot in just one line: An obese mental patient who kills everyone who is standing between her and the fridge. That's the entire story in a nutshell, there are some other things like the characters and the ending that I won't tell you (you can watch the cinema snob's review if you want to know that).

The "effects" on the blood are just cheap. The actors (if you can call them) don't look at the person they are talking to, and the music is driving me Criminally Insane.

This is an Z grade movie, so I am not surprised by the fact that this movie sucks, but I have to admit that this movie is hilarious, because of how bad it was. AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!!! (especially the sequel)

Let me open up by setting the mood for this one. When "Criminally Insane" was first released in the theaters there was a large, industrial sized scale placed in the lobby of selected theaters where it was shown and any woman weighing over 250lbs was admitted to the film for free! This should help set the mood for this poorly filmed, inept but highly entertaining horror-cheapie. The saving grace of this film is the hysterical Priscilla Alden (the 250lbs actress who plays the role of Ethel Janowski). She plays the lead character so dead pan that you cannot help but be entertained by her as she fries a pound of bacon at a time, cooks a dozen eggs, or toasts an entire loaf of bread! Food is actually a character in this film and it is Ethel's worst enemy. She kills 6 people in between stuffing her face with a half-gallon of ice cream, an entire box of vanilla wafers, or a dozen sweet rolls and when she runs out of ideas about how to conceal the bodies...she eats them! Meanwhile she is also the rudest woman you will ever come across, concerned only with her next meal as she spouts anti-semitic statements about her doctor and calls the grocery boy (whom she had just murdered) a "smart-alec kid". So grab yourself a gallon of ice cream and enjoy this 70's horror gem!

CRIMINALLY INSANE (aka: CRAZY FAT ETHEL) stars the inimitable Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski, a rather rotund woman who is released from a mental hospital. Ethel is advised to drop a few pounds, which results in her consuming mass quantities of food, like whole packages of bacon and a loaf of bread with her dozen eggs for breakfast.

Ethel's nagging grandmother attempts to get her to "watch her figure". Ethel ponders this, while eating boxes of vanilla wafers. When granny locks up the food, Ethel takes offense, and takes out her frustration on granny with a big knife.

So begins Ethel's spiral into the abyss of hunger-driven, homicidal frenzy. As the bodies pile up, Ethel's madness explodes exponentially, while she eats and eats and eats.

The cheap, non-produced, barely-directed appearance of the film adds to its effectiveness. Ms. Alden plays her role with utter seriousness and conviction, making Ethel seem like more than the stereotypical lunatic. Even when she's polishing off a stack of sweet rolls or devouring an entire gallon of chocolate ice cream!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The character named John (Robert Copple), one of the most heinous jerks in schlock movie history! Bravo!

P.S.- Watch for George "Buck" Flower as the halfhearted police detective...

It's not easy to call Criminally Insane a movie. It felt like a cheap, poorly edited, no money video tape from Hollywood Video that was thrown about, lightly kicked, had some of the tape tugged at, was thrown around again, was sat at a dinner table and smeared with a bunch of crap, and then kicked around again. It felt old and broken. Not good at all, not even in a trash cinema way. It was just bad. And stupid. And long (even though it's an hour long.)

F.

This attempt at film-making was really too much. This really is Trash with a capital "T". It also carries a simple lesson in life: Never put an overly fat, retarded woman (who's one desire in life is to eat constantly) on a diet. Because she'll go berserk and slaughter everyone coming in reach of her chubby claws. That's the plot of this film, and I can't exactly say it makes up for an exciting viewing. Just imagine an enormous piece of woman performing various actions like killing a victim, dragging bodies up and down the stairs, moving her butt out of the sofa to answer the door, etc. I mean, it takes ages for her to get anything done, so that should warn you about the movie's pace. I imagine the only thing she can really do in the blink of an eye, is eating a pie.

A horrible piece of awful rubbish. Acting that reaches new, unimaginable depths. Be on the look-out for George "Buck" Flower (with no beard) as a detective. As soon as he opens his mouth, you'll be convinced that the man couldn't act his way one inch into a scene even if his life depended on it. The "gory killings" totally fail to have any upsetting effect, as they are so ineptly staged and the blood is clearly some red paint they threw around on the set and smeared some victims with. People just keep showing up at her doorstep (including her slutty sister, who doesn't look like anything remotely "sexy" either), and the fat trollop just keeps on killing everybody while stuffing herself with food. She just piles the bodies up in bedrooms, stinking up the whole place. Anybody who smells anything? Wack & slash, and the poor bastards die too.

Surprisingly, while this film can't move any slower to its "shocking" denouement (which you can see coming from the moment Fat Ethel makes her first kill), I didn't really get bored sitting through this piece of excrement. I never thought a steaming pile of celluloid turd could actually be this fascinating. And no matter how you look at it, once you've seen it, you won't forget it. If you think you can handle a fine example of bad taste in film-making, then this is the film for you. One of the ugliest films I've seen in a long time. Take this as a compliment or a warning; you be the judge.

Good Badness? Yes, very much, if only for its aka title being "Crazy Fat Ethel". 2/10 and 8/10

Of course I had never heard about this 1975 slasher movie titled "Criminally Insane" from writer and director Nick Millard. So when I stumbled upon it here in 2024, of course I opted to sit down and give the movie a fair chance. I wasn't really harboring much of any grand expectations, truth be told.

The script was pretty straightforward, though a bit on the simplistic side. So it wasn't really as if writer Nick Millard had conjured up something unique or outstanding, not even for a movie from 1975. Watchable, sure, but hardly a memorable movie experience.

Needless to say that I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. However, the acting performances in the movie were pretty wooden and dubious, which essentially took away from the overall enjoyment of the movie.

The special effects in "Criminally Insane" have not aged well; they look rather low-key, amateurish and just doesn't really have the desired effect to them by todays standards. And the blood in the movie was some of the worst blood I have seen in movies, even in movies as old as "Criminally Insane". It was an unnatural hue of red, which looked like nothing more than actual red paint. And the death scenes had me laughing, which I am sure wasn't the intention of director Nick Millard when he made this movie.

The music in the movie is strange, especially because it just abruptly ends in the middle of everything in between scene cuts.

"Criminally Insane" is definitely not a movie that I would recommend horror fans to rush out and track down. It just simply wasn't worth the 61 minutes that it ran for. Yet, I managed to endure the movie to the bitter end.

My rating of this 1975 slasher movie titled "Criminally Insane" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

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.

When I first saw this movie I hated it. My girlfriend and I both thought this was just another bit of low budget cinematic stinkweed. Well that was many years ago. We recently found the movie on DVD and wondered "Could it really have been as bad as we remember?" and picked it up.

So the answer is yes, it really was as bad as we remember but we developed a new respect for this picture after hearing director Nick Phillips talk about when he went through making it and how the actors really believed in the project. With only $30K to work with they worked for 5 weeks (I guess no one could afford to quite their real jobs so they had to shoot when everybody could get away) to complete the project.

Ethel Janowsky (Priscilla Alden) is released from a mental hospital in the custody of he grandmother. Ethel likes to eat, no she LOVES to eat! She starts her day with a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and half a loaf pf bread and 2 hours later she is ready for a snack! This is not a woman you want to invite over for dinner. When Granny locks up the food and declares that Ethel will have to diet whether she likes it or not Ethel becomes . . . well . . . you saw the title of the movie, right? After skewering Granny with a butcher knife Ethel unlocks the treasure chest . . . er . . . I mean the food cabinet and starts chowing down.

Of course life for her does not become idyllic. She has to kill the grocery delivery guy when he demands that she pay her back bill ($80, a hefty amount back in 1975), then her doctor shows up wanting to know why Ethel has not shown up for electro-shock therapy and he gets a shock of his own when she kills him. Then her slutty sister moves in with her sleazy boyfriend/pimp and starts turning tricks in the neighbourhood. As if that weren't bad enough those corpses locked in Grandma's bedroom are beginning to rot and there is only so much that air freshener can cover up. What's a fat, food addict, serial killer to do? Well, she could always . . . oops almost let it slip. Find out for yourself, you might guess the ending but even if you do you will not be disappointed.

Gore is plentiful but the killings are unconvincing and, dare I say it, reminded me of Andy Milligan's homemade gore effects. When Ethel bashes in someone's head it's obvious she is barely tapping them while these loud THUMPS are on the soundtrack; ditto when she uses the meat cleaver on her sister and her boyfriend. Still, director Phillips did the best he could (he admitted later that the stage blood they used was a little too red and thick).

Ten years later Phillips brought Ms. Alden back to do CRAZY FAT ETHEL, a shot-on-video sequel that probably had an ever lower budget.

CRIMINALLY INSANE is on DVD now with its sequel and a bonus film, SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING, also directed by Phillips. Do yourself a favour and skip that one.

Utterly bizarre no-budget (I think all the money went on the camera) horror flick. The plot (seems a stretch to even call it that) revolves around Ethel Janowski (Priscilla Alden), '250 pounds of maniacal fury' (as it says on the poster) released from a psychiatric hospital (where she'd been committed for bouts of depression and violence) into the care of her grandmother. Ethel is instructed to attend outpatient appointments for electroshock therapy and to lose weight for the sake of her overall health. However, Ethel has no intention of doing either, and when it becomes obvious that grandmother is determined to make sure she DOES do them Ethel dispatches her with a kitchen knife. She then arranges for a delivery of groceries, but when she hasn't got the money to pay for them she kills the delivery boy with a broken bottle. And so it goes on; anyone who gets between Ethel and her food or who looks like they might be on the trail of what she's been up to get's stabbed/chopped/bludgeoned and added to the pile of corpses locked in her grandmother's bedroom. And that's pretty much it. We get a police officer (played by John Carpenter regular George 'Buck' Flower) investigating the disappearance of the delivery boy, plus Ethel's prostitute sister and her pimp who both decide they're going to move in with Ethel for a while (as well as the sister's 'clients' showing up at all hours). It's not hard to guess who will and who won't make it to the end of the picture. It's directed by prolific softcore and exploitation filmmaker Nick Millard (who seems to have had more aliases than Bruno Mattei!), here under the name of 'Nick Phillips'. There's plenty of blood, although most of it looks like someone kicked over a tin of red paint, and the kills are pretty corny. It's by no means a good film, but as a grim, gritty, grainy, 'grubby' piece of 70s American cinema it has something. 5/10.

Criminally Insane is a surprisingly entertaining film, especially for one that's only 60 minutes long and shot entirely in someone's grandma's house. I originally thought it looked like a home movie, until I saw the director's follow-up film "DEATH NURSE," at which point my opinion of the first film changed entirely. I was then impressed with the luster and sparkle of CRIMINALLY INSANE. The characters are really interesting, especially Ethel's hooker sister and her abusive pimp boyfriend who dreams of being in the movies. Most interesting, of course, is Ethel herself. Priscilla Alden, displaying something almost remotely resembling true moviestar charisma. She is a hoot to watch as she hacks her grandma to death out of frustration at finding the refridgerator empty. At only 60 minutes the plot moves along swiftly, with odd subplots rearing their head, including Ethel's incompetant attempts to dispose of the bodies. Very, very, very interesting. Very overlooked. Anyone who doesn't like this movie is a jerk.

One of those low budget horror beasts every connoisseur of the art of horror should have witnessed at least once in his lifetime. Criminally Insane is terrible but exciting and entertaining at the same time.