Overbearing Paul (superbly played with unbridled ferocity and intensity by Abe Zwick) and his infantile dimwit partner Stanley (an amiably dopey portrayal by Wayne Crawford) are a pair of jewel thieves on the lam from the law who decide to lay low in a small Florida town. Paul devises the ingenious idea of pretending to be Stanley's dowdy Aunt Martha as a clever means of eluding detection. Problems arise when Stanley threatens to blow their cover by hanging out with several local tramps.Writer/director Thomas Casey concocts an arrestingly off-kilter plot that offers a jarring and peculiar, yet still absorbing and enjoyable unholy mix of raw sudden violence, seething homo-eroticism (domineering homosexual Paul is clearly carrying a torch for the hopelessly awkward and inept Stanley), raging jealousy, freaky cross-dressing, and even some tasty gratuitous female nudity tossed in for trashy good measure. The fraught relationship between Paul and Stanley gives this picture an extra deliciously demented kick; the scenes with an enraged Paul scolding Stanley for being such a dope-addled screw-up are positively hysterical. Zwick and Crawford do sterling work in the leads; they receive sound support from Don Craig as bothersome down his luck junkie Hubert, Robin Hughes as alluring brunette Vicki, and Yanka Mann as pesky neighbor Mrs. Adams. Edmund Gibson's stark cinematography boasts a few funky psychedelic visual flourishes. The groovy film library score hits the sweet far-out spot. A delightfully singular doozy.

**potential spoilers**Despite the relegation of this film to the horror section of my local independent video store, this film is more of a warped gay psychodrama with some knife murders thrown in for good effect. Paul and Stanley are the lovers in question who flee Baltimore for a Miami suburb after a jewel theft gone horribly wrong. To complete their charade, Paul poses as Stanley's Aunt Martha, complete with dime store wig and the best that Lane Bryant has to offer. If there's anything dreadful, it's the sick relationship between Stanley and Paul, a freaky pseudo-incestuous dynamic that suggests the relationship between Norman Bates and his mother (in addition to Paul's donning the Aunt Martha get-up to off Stanley's potential female conquests). Paul alternately scolds and babys Stanley, who willingly plays along. This bizarre fantasy world is definitely one of the more fascinating aspects of this movie, which has as many holes swiss cheese. A middle-aged junkie shows up midway through the movie and encroaches on the domestic bliss of the two, either to snag the stolen jewels for himself or to blackmail Paul in to giving him a crash pad in exchange for not revealing his true identity. It's not clear. What is clear is that, as Paul's psychosis grows more lethal, the movie drifts further and further out to sea. Thrown in some more murders, a still-born baby delivered by Stanley via Cesarean, a corpse in a trunk dumped in a river, and a deranged finale in an old movie studio, and you have one brain-boiler of a movie!

This is a very delightful film that should appeal to horror fans and those searching for offbeat and forgotten gems. POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.Two small-time Baltimore crooks flee to Miami to hide out in a rented home in the suburbs - only, they aren't your ordinary petty thieves! No, sir! Instead, director/writer Thomas Casey has masterfully cast them as a gay couple, Paul (aka Aunt Martha) being the domineering, cross-dressing chief-boot-knocker, with Stanley as the callow, somewhat-submissive teen-hippie. Stanley (played by Wayne Crawford) is a child-like idiot (just turning nineteen) who, despite being wanted for murder, drives a colorful attention-grabbing van around (that actually has the word `door' painted on the door). And while he may indeed have a few character inconsistencies (a homosexual, coke-snorting hippie with hang-ups who knows how to deliver babies via C-section?), Paul (played beautifully by Abe Zwick in his only known role) is simply killer! He's got that over-the-top delivery that sometimes sounds ad-libbed, reminiscent of the many memorable characters of John Barrymore and Gene Wilder - mixing deadpan humor with over-enunciated words and psychotic facial expressions.Partly to throw off the heat, Paul dons the guise of Stanley's "Aunt Martha," dressing in drag and doing the cooking and cleaning while Stanley jacks around with the Woodstock generation (drugged-out dudes in leather vests and skanky nude chicks). Extremely jealous (and tipping a hat to Hitchcock's `Psycho'), Aunt Martha then attempts to slice-and-dice any girls (referred to as whore, sluts, or bitches) trying to get in Stanley's snakeskin pants (which he never takes off throughout the film's entirety). Zwick's performance is a joy to watch and his dialogue is absolutely hilarious. He embodies elements of Vaudevillian slapstick, making even the subtle act of smoking a cigar a work of art! And the scene where Martha yells at the phone then throws darts at a poster of a girl's ass while swigging beer is priceless!Another character, Hubert (Don Craig), shows up toward the end to make things even more baffling - he's a double-crossing heroin junkie in his 60s who once worked in a drug-store in Baltimore but, for some unknown reason, has followed our dynamic duo all the way to Miami (through the power of the Zodiac) because he has nowhere else to go (in reality, he's just another petty thief with horrible rationalization skills after some jewels). And, to make things even more bizarre, he's a junior astrologist bordering on analytical psychology.The film drags on a little at the end (really, what's with that Caesarian section scene?) -- and should have been edited down a bit or reinforced with more crucial scenes, but director Thomas Casey has essentially (and effectively) crossed Truman Capote's `In Cold Blood' and `Psycho' with TV fare like `Bosom Buddies,' `The Odd Couple,' and `That '70s Show.' Now, he needs to turn this into a weekly series for HBO, or make a prequel that explains the whole odd arrangement. Or he could make a sequel that finds Paul surviving the gunshot wound and being released from prison thirty years later as a rehabilitated man (or so you'd think). The possibilities are endless!`Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things' is easily one of the most interesting B-movies I've ever seen!

Very strange, and quite funny little movie about a gay couple hiding out, one of them wanted for murder, which the other one is responsible for. One is a coke snorting hippie, the other one a Psycho killer in drag, mayhem and b.movie weirdness follows. Give it a chance if you like obscure 70´ movies.