Low-budgeted piece of junk marked a sidestep into slasher type cinema for adult filmmaker Nick Millard. It's become somewhat iconic among aficionados of bad B movies, if only for the performance of its leading lady, the imposing Priscilla Alden. Make no mistake: it's a VERY bad movie, in just about every respect. The music score in particular is egregious. Filmed in about five weeks for approximately $30,000, it just sort of plods along, but clocks in at a mere 62 minutes in length. Part of the pleasure is in watching the EXTREMELY tacky gore, which is plentiful and amusing in the way that only the brightest red paint can be.The late, great Ms. Alden plays Ethel Janowski (an alternate title for this is "Crazy Fat Ethel"), an obese young woman who's just gotten out of a mental hospital where the doctors there seemed to really love giving her electro-shock therapy. Now her sole focus in life is on stuffing her face, and woe to any stupid person that gets in the way of her feeding frenzy. Ethels' trampy sister Rosalie (Lisa Farros) adds complication to Ethels' life by coming to stay with her while continuing to turn tricks for mindlessly horny men.The superior character actor George 'Buck' Flower, here using his exploitation pseudonym of C.L. Lefleur, adds to the fun with his appearances as an investigating detective. There's also entertainment in seeing the surly Ethel being forced to deal with an escalating situation, killing one person after another to keep this killing spree a secret. As a result, that house starts stinking pretty badly. Viewers' jaws may drop when Rosalies' pimp / boyfriend John (Michael Flood) lets her know how he feels about the beating of women - which actually seems to turn her on!Millard spices things further with his priceless nightmare sequence, an unqualified highlight. And the abrupt way that he resolves his own silly story does make perfect sense, knowing what we do about Ethel.This is garbage, but it's GREAT garbage.Seven out of 10.

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 (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.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!!!

The only thing thats INSANE is how much I love this movie. There's something about boring low-budget horror that makes me feel peaceful and "at home". Its the way I feel about Friedel's "California Axe Massacre". I get a similar vibe from this movie. Ethel (Priscilla Alden) character is so stagnant and unfeeling (no over-acting here). I find it so entertaining to watch wig out within the first 10 minutes, slaughtering family members just because she's got a craving for Nilla Wafers. I can totally see why tons of people would hate this movie. Even though its only an hour long, I could see someone with a short attention span having a particularly big problem with this. But anyone who's awesome will dig it whole-heartedly. (Especially when the detective says "Oh My God" at the end) I do believe thats my favorite part.