The original ‘Criminally Insane’ (Also known as ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ is a bit of a personal pleasure of mine. a film that isnt afraid to be what it wants to be, even if what it wants to be is something as simple as an overweight woman with mental health issues who murders when people deny her sweet treats and lil snacks…It was a surreal film make NO mistake, mixing dark comedy elements with a genuinely harrowing subplot about abusive relationships. Compelling viewing im sure you’ll agree…

Then 12 years later, Nick Millard decided there was more to explore with the character…for SOME reason…and on a budget that consisted of a camcorder that was 3 months late on payments, and a half dozen favours from friends and family. Nick made ‘Criminally Insane 2’ and having now watched it for the first time, I can definitely say that it is in fact. moving pictures assembled in some kind of an order…

The plot picks up about 10-12 years after the events of ‘Criminally Insane’ as we reunite with Ethel, once again drugged up in a mental hospital. We then are introduced to two doctors who run the hospital, who have just been given the budget for the year, and its looking like serious cuts are going to have to be made. They decide the simplest and quickest cut would be to release any inmates that havent attacked other residents or hurt themselves in the last 5 years, moving them either to a halfway house, or a lower security hospital. And…given Ethels basically been in a vegetative state for the last 5-10 years, eating small meals and…seemingly rewatching ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ over and over again in her mind, the doctors decide that she’s a low risk patient and transfer her to a halfway house, care of elderly landlady ‘Hope Bartholemew’.

and…basically, from there, it all kicks off again. With Ethel not getting enough food, or worse, getting BAD food, and slowly but surely picking off the residents of the halfway house…Only…this time it seems like even LESS folks care about all these dissapearing people. as a homicide detective AND Ethels former Doctor are both made aware that Ethel is acting erratic…But both dont really decide to do anything until the final 15 minutes of this 61 minute feature.

And when I say that I sincerely believe that more of ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ plays in ‘Crazy Fat Ethel 2’ than ‘Crazy Fat Ethel 2’…im not kidding, what we have here is probably somewhere in the region of 25 minutes of footage of Priscilla Alden spacing out to camera or hobbling around slowly trying to murder people, intercut with some of THE worst exposition i’ve heard in a good while, and padded out the WAZOO with ANY scrap of footage they could pull from ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ but the footage is so low resolution and poor, it looks like its being viewed through smoked glass.

There really isnt much need for a more in depth review than that. the direction and cine is rushed, poorly composed and shot for function over form. Degausser video have done the best they can with the materials provided for the film, but its still riddled with tape faults, juddering, interpolation and the fact that it must have been shot on very cheap low quality tape stock.

The script feels less like an attempt at making a movie, and more like an excuse for Nick Millard to hang around with his buddies for a couple of weeks shooting a movie, and if thats all that is? Then more power to him. I dont think we as audience members to this should be charged full retail so that he could have that priviladge.

There are a dwindlingly small moment of genuinely funny, or sincerely awkward moments. at times it inadvertently winds up feeling Lynchian in its overly long holds, strange compositional choices, unique dialogue and even more unique line delivery. But make no mistake this absolutely should have been a short film, half an hour at most, thats been padded to try and make the base runtime in the quickly developing ‘SOV’ scene at the time.

The performances are just horrendous, and thats one of the few things that works in the films favour, its nice to see Priscilla back in action and she gets the lions share of the best bits alongside the actress who played ‘Hope’ who’s line deliveries could shatter birds…

Throw in a farty synth scoring intercut with music from the first ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ film…not uniquely used here…just used as part of the padding. and I kind of have to wonder what the point of all this was…I think a rewatch may ultimately decide which side of the fence this one lands on for me…But I dont think where was enough ‘so bad its good’-ness here to warrent repeated watchings…but at the same time, I feel compelled to say that if you enjoyed the first film for its unusual tone and energy, that you’ll probably find something to like in this one too.

But unless you have a strong constitution, absolutely stay away from this thing.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/criminally-insane-2/