Criminally Insane 2 (1987) BOMB (out of 4) Incredibly horror film that ranks as one of the worst ever made. Like many "sequels" of the 80s, this here takes about forty-minutes worth of footage from the first film and adds 20-minutes worth of new footage, which was all shot on a camcorder. Even the opening and closing credits were lifted from the first film!!!Criminally Insane (1975) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The title pretty much sums up this incredibly bizarre, politically incorrect exploitation film that fans should really eat up. 300 pound plus Ethyl gets out of an insane asylum but she's outraged that people want her to go on a diet so she starts killing anyone who gets between her and food. Running just over 60-minutes this film is technically pretty bad but the outrageous subject matter makes for a very fun movie in the same vein of a John Waters film. There's plenty of violence and fake blood to make you giggle, although the "joke" of an obese person killing gets old after the thirty-minute mark.

Nick Millard aka Nick Phillips should have left well-enough alone when he made "Criminally Insane" 10 years before the release of this god-awful waste of time and effort. The fact that the original "Criminally Insane" was less than an hour in length should have clued him into the fact that he had probably milked this storyline for all he was going to get out of it...but instead he opts to use TONS of footage from the original in this one as well, even to the point of recycling the original opening credit sequence! Unfortunately, bringing back the rapidly aging Priscilla Alden did not save this one. What little bit of original footage there was in this flick looks as if it were filmed with a rented hand-held camcorder! If this film cost more than $100 to make I would be very surprised and I would be equally surprised if it made anything close to that amount! Avoid this one and watch the original instead!

Criminally Insane 2Where the first Criminally Insane has developed into a sort-of cult horror classic, the second has garnered much attention for its inability to live up to its predecessor and its obvious lack of imagination.The original Criminally Insane was truly an exercise in uncompromised creepiness, due partially to the director, Steve Millard, who seemed concentrated on delving into areas that were sure to offend mass audiences. The subject matter, a woman cannibalizing members of her family, and the alternate title, Crazy Fat Ethel, are enough in themselves to offend substantial groups of people. However, the merging of religious imagery, there's a statue of Jesus drenched in a victim's blood, alongside images of a deranged woman chopping to pieces members of her family, were sure to push fellows so inclined, over the edge, at the same time, garnering hordes of fans who enjoy that sort of thing. Personally, I loved the first picture, and consider it one of the truly great slasher films of the seventies. Sadly, my reaction to the sequel is something else altogether.Priscilla Alden, a little older and a little grayer, is back as Ethel Janowski, still confined to the Nappa Mental Institute, and still reliving, in her dreams, the nightmare that is her past. Thirteen years later, Ethel Janowski, a dangerously obese young woman, murdered and cannibalized six members of her family before being caught and sentenced to a mental institute -- all of which is displayed in gory detail in the original film. Her descent into madness was strangely remedied by a deranged compulsion to eat. When part two commences, we realize that the years haven't been kind to poor Ethel. A heavy stream of sleep-inducing medication combined with extensive counseling, has done very little to cure her. Ethel seems unable, or unwilling, to grasp the sheer horrific magnitude of her past deeds, something that is completely lost on the Nappa doctors, who seem more concerned with the overcrowding problem at the institution. This, of course, sets up the next function of the story. Funding and capacity problems at the hospital force the trustees into making a radical decision about what to do with some of their patients. So, after some careful consideration, they decide to release some of their more non-violent patients to a moderately supervised halfway house. Deemed passive by at least one of the doctors, Ethel is quickly put on the list to be released. Big mistake.The elderly owner of the rehabilitation house, Hope Bartholomew (Lisa Farros), who lives by the credo "There's always hope" quickly detects that her newest guest might be more dangerous than the doctors had specified, and grows even more weary when Ethel starts referring to her as granny -- the family member who set off Ethel's murderous rampage some thirteen years earlier. Ethel's mental condition starts to deteriorate rapidly in her new surroundings, as she spends more time alone in her thoughts, re-living her past murders, and dwelling on ways to partake in more. Her equally bizarre house mates, a fellow 'reformed' serial killer who likes to boast about the various ways he dispatched his ex-wives, and another fellow, who chases and eats bugs, only help to accelerate her descent into total madness. Ad to the mix the fact that Ethel's being deprived of her food and not taking her medication, and it's just a matter of time before she goes on another hack and slash campaign. When it starts, it's almost worth the wait, as Ethel puts much more thought into her second murderous gyration. One of her house guests, the wife killer, is somehow able to read Ethel like a book, slowly discerning each of her various plots to murder him, including a plan to get him to drink tea laced with rat poison. Strangely, it is the exchanges between these two slightly clichéd killers that provides some of the more interesting moments in the film.The story of Ethel Janowski comes full-circle at the end of the film when she wanders outside into the backyard and begins dancing about in the sunlight. Clad in a raggedy dress and holding a bloody knife, Ethel skips about gleefully, basking in her own madness. The macabre outdoor dance, which feels almost like a symbolic reclaiming of virtue by the main character, brings to mind images of the first film, where the younger Ethel had dreamed of dancing about in the sunlight just before she was arrested. This time, her dream is fulfilled.Regarding the technical aspects of the film, it is a mess. The 1975 original was shot on film, while the sequel was shot on video. The two formats are merged together in the dream sequences, and it just doesn't work. If anything, it helps to provide a visual confirmation of the superiority of film over video. Also, the acting is stiff, even by Alden, who has made quite a career working alongside such Hollywood heavyweights as Hugh Grant and Nicholas Cage. Here she isn't given much room to play character-wise, which probably accounts for her uninspired, dreary performance. The other actors, which include mostly amateurs and at least one former porn star, are just as rigid in their roles. The writer-director, Steve Millard, who started out making hardcore porn films in the late sixties, would pretty much finish his career with Criminally Insane 2. He would make only one other film before retiring in 1988. It doesn't so much matter I guess, as it became abundantly obvious while watching this sequel, that he was no longer the spirited director he once was.The Millard family, Nick, Frances, S.S. and, of course, Steve, are essentially legends in the exploitation-movie universe and their films, including the Criminally Insane franchise, have become rare treasures sought after by everyone from die-hard collectors to b-movie archivists. I'm optimistic that someday we'll witness a resurgence of their films on DVD. Like Ms. Bartholomew was so fond of saying, there's always hope.

This is the most boring worthless piece of crap I've ever wasted an hour of my life on. All I can say is thank God it was only an hour. Over half of this 'movie' is footage from the original "Criminally Insane". At the very least, I was able to see the highlights from that rare exploitation classic, since for some reality-defying reason my video store only has "Criminally Insane II" (as it had it, "Crazy Fat Ethel II"). But the rest of this movie is some of the absolute worst home-video acting and backyard filmmaking you'll ever see. Why is it my video store has this and not the original? Why does stuff like this actually end up in video stores? Why do people rent it and not immediately burn the copy once they've seen its sheer horror? Why - AAUUGGHH - Why, God, why?Unless you enjoy seeing annoying fruits eating an entire candy bar in an excruciatingly slow scene, or said fruit getting hung from the stair railing in an even slower scene, or a character getting stabbed sideways (don't ask) multiple times in the back, or brain cell-murdering monologues about giving poisoned tea to one's wife and then complaining that all the talk has made one's own tea go cold, or the mentally-retarded eating fly soup, or just simply want to see Crazy Fat Ethel dancing with a bloody knife in a garden: Don't watch this movie. Repeat: Do NOT watch this movie. Do not rent this movie. If at all possible, do not walk past a shelf in a video store that has a copy of this movie setting on it. You can still be saved, but it is too late for me now. . .