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Criminally Insane

 Criminally Insane
type
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 Criminally Insane
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Criminally Insane
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CriminallyInsane
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Criminally Insane (also known as Crazy Fat Ethel) is a slasher-ish horror film released in 1975.Institutionalized for an indeterminate amount of time due to suffering from a number of problems, the most prominent of which is her violent mood swings, the morbidly obese Ethel Janowski is eventually released into the care of her grandmother despite the protests of one Doctor Gerard, who suggests that Ethel come in four times a week for electroshock therapy. Once home, the surly Ethel starts stuffing her face, eating her poor grandmother out of house and home. Becoming fed up with Ethel's gorging, granny empties the refrigerator and locks all the food away in the cupboards, telling Ethel that it's high time she went on a diet whether she wants to or not. Not taking this well, Ethel proceeds to stab her grandmother to death and cuts the key to the pantry locking out her cold dead hand.With no one around to stop her, Ethel goes on an eating binge and quickly runs out of food, necessitating that she order more from the local grocery store. When the teenage delivery boy shows up with the food and demands payment for it and other overdue bills, a frustrated Ethel murders him, barely having time to lock the body in her grandmother's room with the old woman's rapidly decaying corpse before her prostitute sister Rosalie shows up needing a place to stay. Begrudgingly giving Rosalie and Rosalie's abusive pimp and boyfriend John room and board, Ethel spins a lie about how their grandmother has gone away to visit someone and beats Doctor Gerard to death when he stops by asking questions about where Granny Janowski is, and why Ethel has not gone to her scheduled treatments. With the bodies piling up (not to mention smelling terrible) and her housemates and the police becoming suspicious, Ethel starts to crack even more. What is a fat, unstable woman who just wants to eat in peace to do? Oh yeah, kill everyone!A bit of a Cult Classic, Criminally Insane had a poorly received shot-on-video sequel thirteen years after its initial release, though much like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 and the sequels to The Boogeyman (1980), it consists primarily of footage recycled from its predecessor. What little new footage there is has Ethel being dumped in a lax halfway house due to extreme budget cuts to the asylum she was placed in, and it isn't long until her appetite and murderous urges get the best of her.In 2005, both Criminally Insane films got a DVD release by Shock-O-Rama Cinema, coming packaged with the vampire flick Satan's Black Wedding. While the sequel is barebones, Criminally Insane was bestowed with a commentary track and an interview with the director, a producer, and its star, Priscilla Alden.A remake of the first film, using the alternate title Crazy Fat Ethel, was released in 2016.
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2024-03-20T00:45:37Z
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2024-03-20T00:45:37Z
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Dropped link to Blackmail: Not a Feature - ITEM
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Dropped link to ChaseScene: Not a Feature - IGNORE
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Trailers Always Spoil
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Trailers Always Spoil: It shows most of the deaths, for instance.
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 Criminally Insane / int_19851b86
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The Sociopath
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The Sociopath: Ethel Janowski, who believes that murder is a justified response to people trying to regulate her compulsive eating.
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 Criminally Insane / int_217a1adf
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I Love the Dead
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I Love the Dead: Ethel sleeps next to John's corpse for a night.
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 Criminally Insane / int_22071825
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I'm a Humanitarian
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I'm a Humanitarian: The film ends with a detective, who is called after a neighbor finds a severed hand in the trunk of Ethel's car, discovering Ethel in the middle of gnawing on a severed arm.
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 Criminally Insane / int_2a015a74
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Beauty Equals Goodness
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Beauty Equals Goodness: More like "Ugliness Equals Evilness", as Ethel is an Ax-Crazy psycho who's also fat and ugly, and everyone else is at least average.
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 Criminally Insane / int_3bf27a8d
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Right Through the Wall
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Right Through the Wall: "Sometimes I could hear you. I know what you were doing with John, Rosalie."
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Blatant Lies
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Blatant Lies: The opening credits since they're stock footage from the first film with nearly three-thirds of the cast not in the film.
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 Criminally Insane / int_4de1a4f7
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Improvised Weapon
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Improvised Weapon: Hope has her head bashed in with... something that looks like a goblet.
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Fat Bastard
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Fat Bastard: Ethel is morbidly obese and will kill people for the pettiest of reasons.
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 Criminally Insane / int_53c9fc92
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Flashback
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Flashback: To the first film.
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 Criminally Insane / int_58bf7895
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Eat the Evidence
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Eat the Evidence: Unable to get rid of the bodies by burying them or dumping them at sea, Ethel resorts to this.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_590eb583
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Domestic Abuse
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Domestic Abuse: John is extremely abusive to Rosalia both physically and emotionally.
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Police Are Useless
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Police Are Useless: Two murders at the halfway house and Ethel isn't even a suspect.
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 Criminally Insane / int_5b9925f7
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Curiosity Killed the Cast
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Curiosity Killed the Cast: After being out of touch with Hope for two days, Doctor Stevens drops by the halfway house to see what is wrong, and gets knifed by Ethel.
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 Criminally Insane / int_5fcedca
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Big Eater
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Big Eater: The entire source of Ethel's insanity.
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1.0
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Dream Sequence
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Dream Sequence: These are used to show most of the previous film's footage.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_67792344
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Grievous Bottley Harm
 Criminally Insane / int_67792344
comment
Grievous Bottley Harm: After a deliveryman refuses to give her the food she ordered, Ethel smashes a bottle over his head, then stabs him with a piece of the shattered remains.
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 Criminally Insane / int_6a25c388
type
Mummies at the Dinner Table
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comment
Mummies at the Dinner Table: Ethel props John's and Rosalie's corpses up in a bed and talks to them while scarfing down some potatoes.
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 Criminally Insane / int_6aa28a76
type
Overcrank
 Criminally Insane / int_6aa28a76
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Overcrank: Faked in the scene where John smacks Rosalie by having it done again in a much slower manner.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_6d7cd3e
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Dead Person Impersonation
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comment
Dead Person Impersonation: The film ends with Ethel pretending to be Hope Bartholomew, the halfway house director.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_70165a72
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Orderlies are Creeps
 Criminally Insane / int_70165a72
comment
Orderlies are Creeps: The unnamed one feeds the halfway house patients dog food, and taunts Ethel by eating chocolate bars in front of her.
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 Criminally Insane / int_729c69f3
type
Politically Incorrect Villain
 Criminally Insane / int_729c69f3
comment
Politically Incorrect Villain: Ethel is quite an anti-Semite in the film, and when it's theorized the missing delivery boy may have been robbed, she suggests the mugger was colored.
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 Criminally Insane / int_863fa679
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What Happened to the Mouse?
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What Happened to the Mouse?: It isn't revealed what happened to Greg after Ethel kills Dr. Stevens.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_898ff050
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Villain Protagonist
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Villain Protagonist: Ethel receives the most focus off all the characters.
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1.0
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Asshole Victim
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Asshole Victim: John, Rosalie's abusive ex-boyfriend and pimp, is the least sympathetic of Ethel's victims.
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1.0
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The Scourge of God
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comment
The Scourge of God: Rosalie is a prostitute who snorts crack, while John is a misogynistic, violent ass who also partakes in recreational cocaine usage.
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 Criminally Insane / int_970c790a
type
Big Bad
 Criminally Insane / int_970c790a
comment
Big Bad: Ethel Janowski, a madwoman who kills anybody who gets between her and food.
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 Criminally Insane / int_985795ab
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Medium Blending
 Criminally Insane / int_985795ab
comment
Medium Blending: The film was shot on a cheap video camera (complete with a motor being picked up on the mic), which intercuts with the original that's shot on film. The difference is striking.
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 Criminally Insane / int_9dd2cbc2
type
CloudCuckooLander
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comment
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Greg, who believes himself to be an animal and collects insects from the ground so he can eat them.
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 Criminally Insane / int_9ff5aa20
type
Nailed to the Wagon
 Criminally Insane / int_9ff5aa20
comment
Nailed to the Wagon: Grandma Janowski decides to clean out the fridge and lock all the food in the cupboards so Ethel can't get at it. Big mistake.
 Criminally Insane / int_9ff5aa20
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 Criminally Insane / int_ad54954f
type
Punk in the Trunk
 Criminally Insane / int_ad54954f
comment
Punk in the Trunk: Ethel stuffs the sack containing her grandmother's dismembered remains into the trunk of her own car.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_b2af79fb
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Leave the Camera Running
 Criminally Insane / int_b2af79fb
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Leave the Camera Running: This movie could win some kind of award for this. It has Padding upon Padding despite being only 60 minutes long. invoked
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_bc74ef27
type
Berserk Button
 Criminally Insane / int_bc74ef27
comment
Berserk Button: Hope denying Ethel pretzels.
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 Criminally Insane / int_c93a6560
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Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
 Criminally Insane / int_c93a6560
comment
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The grandmother's death.
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 Criminally Insane / int_d028e0da
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An Arm and a Leg
 Criminally Insane / int_d028e0da
comment
An Arm and a Leg: After the smell becomes too overbearing, Ethel decides to dispose of her victims by chopping up the bodies and dumping them elsewhere.
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Insane Equals Violent
 Criminally Insane / int_e57c714d
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Insane Equals Violent: Who knew slight paranoia over food could lead to serial murder?
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No Ending
 Criminally Insane / int_ea2e9f2d
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No Ending: The film literally ends with a detective finding Ethel partaking in cannibalism.
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Wall Crawl
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Wall Crawl: Greg is convinced he is a lizard, and he thinks he can do this.
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TheSeventies
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The '70s: The movie is set in 1973.
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 Criminally Insane / int_f36c4f98
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Easily Forgiven
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comment
Easily Forgiven: After John tells her that she needs to be abused every once in a while, Rosalie accepts his apology and goes back to having drugs and sex with him.
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Villainous Glutton
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comment
Villainous Glutton: Ethel is absolutely obsessed with eating and will literally kill people who try to curb her food intake.
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1.0
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 Criminally Insane / int_f6b30338
type
Murder Is the Best Solution
 Criminally Insane / int_f6b30338
comment
Murder Is the Best Solution: Food locked away? Kill the key holder. Don't have enough to pay the grocery bill? Kill the delivery boy. Sister and her boyfriend complaining about the rank odors coming from the always locked bedroom? Kill them.
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PsychopathicWomanchild
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comment
Psychopathic Womanchild: Ethel is what happens when you combine the selfishness and impulsiveness of a spoiled child with the size and strength of an adult.
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Pater Familicide
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comment
Pater Familicide: A gender-flipped version: Ethel kills her grandmother, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend.
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Criminally Insane

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

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B-Movie / int_aa11ff4
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Neutral Evil / int_aa11ff4
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Orderlies are Creeps / int_aa11ff4