I had heard about ‘Criminally Insane’ (Though, to me…it’ll always be known by its alternate title ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’) for years amongst the B-movie and cult enthusiast circles as a HELL of an oddity of a picture. So when Vinegar Syndrome recently announced a ground up HD remaster of the thing, OF COURSE I pounced on it to see what all the Hubbub was about…Frankly, I wasnt dissapointed.

The plots pretty much as simple and bizarre as it can be. The film follows ‘Ethel’ a morbidly obese woman who’s spent a number of years in a mental facility due to her psychotic episodes. After managing to subdue her with a combination of drugs and electro shock therapy. The doctors decide to release Ethel back into the custody of her grandmother. The doctors give careful instruction on how to take care of Ethel, alongside the suggestion that she start to seriously consider losing some weight, due to the strain it puts on her heart…

This will prove to be the catalyst for which the rest of the film unfolds. As, on returning home, Ethel almost immediatley goes into a feeding frenzy happily consuming entire ice cream cakes, and whole large packs of bacon with boxes of eggs. Her grandmother decides enough is enough and locks the food in a cupboard. Informing Ethel that she wont be allowed to snack between meals anymore AND that she’ll live on ‘modest portion sizes’ till her weight starts to come down.

Ethels response to this is to accuse her grandmother of attmepting to ‘Starve her to death’ before she picks up a kitchen knife and murders the poor lady, stealing back the key to the cupboard and eating the entire pantry in one sitting.

And…what follows from that is essentially Ethel trying to cover up her initial murder by murdering even more people in a hunger induced rage. While her sister Rosalie (who has returned to the house to lay low after escaping an abusive relationship) decides to use the place to work her ‘trade’.

And…thats basically the movie. Theres not much in the way of complexity, next to no nuance. Its essentially a bit of a proto slasher, with a one note fat joke embedded in it, running on dialogue that would make John Waters rise for applause.

The scripts ultra basic, the act structuring is pretty uneven. the opening act is fine enough, but, for me? This films biggest problem is that it gets into the second act (around the time Rosalie turns up and starts turning tricks) and the film just…locks into a pace and energy and never breaks out above or below that pace. It quickly becomes padded monotonous and repetative.

It has its moments here and there, but it feels very much like its stalling for time right up until the 3rd act…Which is basically the last 10 minutes or so of the film where they remember that this is a movie where they’re ALLOWED to have fun, and they just about stick the landing. With an abrupt cut to credits that made me audibly roar with laughter.

Idling for 30 minutes is a real shame here. But mercifully, everything else is pretty much how I wanted this to play out. its got a comedic, macarbre tone. the dialogue is SO rough and pacey, it reminds me of films like ‘The Baby’ or ‘Female Trouble’ for its ability to just throw out the most BIZARRE lines, scattergun style…it really does become a case of ‘Where do I even begin?!’

The characters are a little flat and one note, but mercifully that one note is campy and mesmorisingly strange. Seriously, this one doesnt let up. constantly pushing the characters into bizarre happenings and with both lines and line deliveries that frankly have to be seen to be believed. The second act may feel slow and repetative, but the quality of the characters on hand more than helped pull me back on track.

Due to the lopsided act structuring the pacing is a bit hit and miss, when its on a role, its superb. But when the film crawls, the pacing matches its speed and my mind quickly wandered to my emails quite frankly…Not that you’re going to miss anything here. Its a plus size woman mudering people in a psychotic blind rage whenever she gets hungry…it’s hardly Chaucer.

Technically? this things a bust. and EASILY the worst aspect of this produciton. Based on the ‘Apology’ note at the opening of Vinegar syndromes release for this one, it feels less like this film was ‘lovingly remastered’ and more like it was ‘recovered from oblivion’ Which does make it hard to gauge how much of whats here is poor direction/post work and how much of it is ‘This film was literally found unspooled in trash liners, where they’d sat for 30+ years…its a wonder they survive.’

Frankly speaking, the direction feels like someones first ever attempt at making a movie…which, given Nick Millard up to this point had basically almost exclusively worked in the adult film industry…I could believe this may have ACTUALLY been his first attempt at trying to string together a coherent narrative using his own creative vision.

scene construction here is an after thought. It feels like they planned a scene out on the day with no paperwork or thought as to whether it would cut together in post, they shot what felt right rather than what would work and then shoved it together as best they could.

As a result, nothing really feels quite cohesive, shots just kind of…happen. it feels mindlessly composed, with only a handful of shots seemingly consisdered…and thats less because Millard had something to say, and more because it couldnt ‘technically’ be shot in any other way.

As a result theres a lot of slow motion shots, repeating shots over and over again, weird effects like inverting the film, and instances of cuts overlapping poorly (though…how intentional that was is probably up for debate). Its bad. It doesnt really show creative story telling through the visuals…But. I need remind you that this film is called ‘Crazy Fat Ethel.’ I think you get the picture.

On the cine? its pretty poor, due to the lack of thought that went into the direction, shots are poorly composed, dont seem to have dominant subjects for a decent chunk of the runtime, and B-roll is almost exclusively saved for ‘kill scenes’ and thats it. NO time was taken to block sequences or work with ‘the line’. While it DOES have its moments here and there shot wise. im not 100% convinced Millard INTENTIONALLY planned any meaning behind this setup. with the one or two good shots being more ‘happy accidents’ than anything else.

As an editor…the edit made me wince. NO timed cuts, NO consideration for B-roll, NON of the match cuts ACTUALLY match. Everything cuts way too early. theres an EYEWATERING sequence near the beginning where Ethels Grandma goes to visit the doctor to get an update on her that could quite easily cause whiplash and a nosebleed given how fast the cuts between shots are. It feels like someone who’s never edited before in their life just decided to ‘have a go’. And given the chronic state of the direction, cine and lack of B-roll…I feel even a veteran would have REALLY struggled to make this thing hold together well…So to see someone just ‘attempt’ to put this thing together is frankly painful to me.

Pricilla Alden is ESSENTIAL to why you need to see this film. She has a wonderful grit and earthy ‘thud’ to her line deliveries which are entirely charasmatic and interesting…Honestly, I fell in love with her performance here, its a character piece and she nails the brief PERFECTLY. shes also surprisingly spry clearing a staircase multiple times without so much as a wheeze which, given I too am a ‘big boy’ I found VERY impressive.

The rest of the cast all basically feel like they were B-characters that fell off the truck of a Grindhouse flick. Not exactly ‘unremarkable’, but when you have such a strong performance in the form of Pricilla, its always going to take a bit of the shine away.

The soundtrack is a bleepy bloopy mess. and, for some reason, much like the edit. the sound edit on this thing is atrocious. theres a full 30 second segment at the beginning of this film where the audio is entirely missing…Noone knows where it went, and Vinegar Syndrome traced it back to the print used to make the copies that were distributed…So this was very likely an issue on the original print too…the adr works terrible, the sound effect work is poor…its frankly quite hilarious.

‘Criminally Insane’ is an incompitent production. Im quite confident of that. But the utter charm it has in its characters, scenarios and simplicity made it a feature I really, honestly quite enjoyed. a PRIME film to watch with friends and beers, I think this would pair up well with a John Waters movie or maybe something like ‘The Baby’ I think this one will grow on me even more over time. Its a TERRIBLE production on a technical level. but utterly watchable on a story and performance level. Definitely recommended.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/criminally-insane/

Watched on Sunday July 7, 2024.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bat-pussy/2/

Watched on Saturday July 6, 2024.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/night-of-the-demon-1980/3/

A personal favourite of mine, theres very little that I really dislike about ‘National Lampoons European Vacation’. Its a film that absolutely feels like it learnt and grew from the initial success of ‘Vacation’. While this film doesnt *quite* hit the gut busting highs of the first film. I personally find its hit rate and tone much more evenly distributed.

The plot, as you can imagine finds us once again in the company of the Griswolds, who this time have managed to win an all expenses paid trip around Europe stopping in England, France, Germany and Rome courtesy of the popular gameshow ‘Pig in a Poke’. Much like the first film Hi-jynx ensue as Clarke and the family rain chaos down on pretty much everyone and anything they happen to come into contact with.

and I find that, across the board, it feels like this entry has a much more comfortable and ‘settled in’ feeling about it. The script is a pacy 94 minutes or so long, and it feels like the decision was made to ‘cartoon-ize’ the Griswolds a little more in this one, which I feel was definitely a step in the right direction as, while we do ultimately lose a more ‘human’ element in this entry that was present in ‘Vacation’ I equally thought at times that ‘Vacation’ got a little too bleak in places and that pulled me out of the comedy.

European Vacation feels much more comfortable with its pratfalls, funny face reactions, dream sequences and stunts. As a European myself, I found the humour to be much more accessable over ‘Vacation’ which was a little too US-centric in places for me to really properly appreciate it. Our characters do get a little sanded down here, with Ellen Griswold basically being sanitized down to a long suffering housewife with not much pushback on show, and Clarke having his ‘manic break’ personality aspects toned way back. He still has some outbursts here, but they’re played less like a man in crisis and more ‘Tex Avery’ for lack of a better comparison.

Humour is of course subjective, and for me? I feel they’ve gone for broader comedy here, which means more jokes that are consistently funny, but a tone that doesnt quite hit as hard as the one or two jokes that REALLY packed a punch in ‘Vacation’…In some ways I actually prefer that though…as id rather consistently laugh for 90+ minutes and have a really good time, than have a mixed comedy experience of highs and lows where a full on laughed maybe a couple of times.

One thing I am a little iffy about is the tone of this entry. While im all in here on the goofy over the top cartoon craziness, this is a distinctly ‘hormonally charged’ film (read here: a LOT of partial nudity and sexually charged dialogue) With recurring rape and pedophile jokes…Im not against ‘Horny’ humour…but it needs to be used sparingly, and here it does get well and truely worn out by the 3rd act.

I also think the second act does seem to slow down a little bit pace wise…Around the time they get to Germany thing take a bit of a dip when the family visit relatives they’ve never seen before…But It makes sense why the film chooses to do that given the scene before and the scene immediately after are a little intense on the comedy front…but it could have just as easily been cut as similar ‘FOREIGNERS DONT SPEAK ENGLISH! HA HA!’ gags are repeated multiple times across the movies runtime.

But, on the whole. I like this script. I think it has a solid hitrate, I feel the characters better fit this scenario, he tone, while maybe a smidge problematic at times is ultimately rock solid for this kind of piece and it feels like the cast really threw themselves into this role.

The direction and cine are superb here with gorgeous shots of European locations circa the mid 80s. there are maybe a couple of scenes that dont quite seem to have come together in the final edit, but its undenyable that a clear vision was had here in realising this picture. it looks great, it largely hangs together great. the cine has a good range of rich and deep shots that are colourful and (mostly) really decently styalized and lit. Sequences hang together solidly and the edit (again for the most part) is pretty rock solid. With only a couple of scenes faltering a little, that I feel is less down to an inexperienced editor, and more down to a vision in planning that just couldnt be executed as intended.

Performances here are superb. Outside of ‘Christmas Vacation’ I think this is probably Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo at their finest. they have remarkable comedic timing, they’re on the top of there respective games here. they bounce of each other wonderfully. they’re frankly superb. Jason Lively is a tad overdoing it here as this films incarnation of ‘Rusty’ as is Dana Hill as ‘Audrey’ they’re VERY overanimate and are trying to play it cringe inducingly cool at times…But…I can kind of give them a free pass as the script is basically asking for a couple of slightly obnoxious teens who dont want to be on holiday, getting dragged on holiday. In that regard they absolutely nailed the brief…But I could understand how some viewers may find them a bit too much.

The supporting cast here though is where this film shines, with cameos from Mel Smith, Eric Idle, Maureen Lipman, Robbie Coltraine, Paul Bartel and Ballard Berkeley. and each and every one of them is just an absolute delight to see on screen, most of the above were still in there ‘golden’ age of acting. and even though most are only brief cameos, they really help raise the bar that this films working with.

Throw in a frankly AWESOME soundtrack with the iconic ‘Holiday Road’ getting a play or two alongside tracks from Dr. John and Network, accompanied by some fantastic orchestral thematic pieces that really help tie the film together and you have frankly a rock solid package that I feel most people will enjoy on at least some level.

Outside of ‘Christmas Vacation’, ‘European Vacation’ is probably my most rewatched of all the ‘Vacation’ films. I have a real soft spot for it. Its a comfort watch, and one I can absolute recommend to anyone unfamiliar with the ‘Vacation’ series, or anyone just looking for a good gut laugh or two. A screwball comedy at its finest. if you havent seen this one, you really gotta fix that as soon as possible.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/national-lampoons-european-vacation/