Also known as: Crazy Fat Ethel
Tagline: "250 Pounds Of Maniacal Fury!"
Plot: Mental patient Priscilla Alden is released into the custody of her grandmother Jane Lambert, who tries to enforce a doctor's advice that Alden lose weight, since the extra pounds are "putting a strain on her heart." But Alden dismisses her shrink as "some crazy Jew doctor," and when Lambert locks the pantry door, Alden shrieks, "You and that heeb are trying to starve me to death!" Then she stabs her grandmother repeatedly in the hand to make her release the key. Then Alden clobbers the grocery-delivery boy when she can't pay the bill. Then she goes on a general rampage of stabbing and bludgeoning, pausing only for a dream sequence in which she runs on a beach in a red smock. (That's called art.)
Key scenes: Between murders, Alden eats. A dozen eggs, a rasher of bacon, and a half-loaf of toasted bread for breakfast. A box of Nilla wafers, a half-gallon of milk, and a bag of ribbon candy for a mid-morning snack. When her prostitute sister's boyfriend asks "Can you spare one of your sweet rolls?", Alden snarls.
Can easily be distinguished by: The way the oboe-heavy soundtrack cuts in and out, and the way nearly every line of dialogue is shot from a different crazy angle.
Sign that it was made in 1975: To disguise the smell of rotting corpses in her attic, Alden buys one of those old-fashioned pull-up air fresheners—the ones that were like a tube of cotton batting suspended in pine-green liquid.
Timeless message: As Lambert nervously suggests, "A person's never too old to watch her figure."
Memorable quotes: When Lambert first brings Alden home, her neighbor shrugs and says, "Well, I hope she's over those terrible rages." —Noel Murray
Available on a triple-feature DVD with Millard/Philips' Satan's Black Wedding and Criminally Insane 2 from Retro Shock-O-Rama.
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