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.

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

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.