Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things (1971)
Aunt Martha lives with her nephew Stanley in a sun-drenched Miami suburb. Stanley is a no-good hippie lay-about, only concerned with smoking pot, drinking beer, and swinging with free and easy hippie chicks. Aunt Martha follows him around all day and berates him loudly for not appreciating her. It would appear that this is a typical American scene. The twist here, however is "Aunt Martha" (Abe Zwick) is a serial killing gay transvestite and Stanley is his reluctant lover. Martha manages to keep Stanley under her thumb by insisting it was he, not she, who murdered that little old lady for her diamonds. (Poor stoned out Stanley, who makes Cheech and Chong look like honor students, doesn't know any better.)
Furthermore, those free and easy hippie chicks find themselves on the business end of a kitchen knife once they discover "Aunt Martha's" little secret. An elderly junky the two met in Baltimore (unintentional John Waters reference) moves in, threatening to blow their cover even further. It just gets sicker and sicker as murdered bodies pile up as "Aunt Martha" resorts to increasingly drastic methods to keep Stanley in line.
It's hard to figure why this shot-in-Florida exploiter was never released theatrically. There is rampant drug use, nudity and a very high body count.
Aunt Martha is one sick, sick puppy of a film that could only have been made in the "anything goes" movie atmosphere of 1971. Intentionally or otherwise, Aunt Martha offers up skewed social comment. The scenes in which Zwick, in ugly dresses and askew wig discusses Stanley's association "with those uncouth hippie types" and with her blackmailing, heroin addict boarder . . . . . . well, I'd like to think the filmmakers had a sly agenda hiding somewhere.
This notion is carried through upon when Stanley commits an extremely gruesome murder (still nauseating by today's standards . . . . . you'll just have to see the picture). "Aunt Martha" who had previously bellowed at Stanley for drinking milk out of a carton, replies with a fey "oh, well, you've really done it now, Stanley . . . . . " In this crackpot vision of suburbia, untidiness is the ultimate horror. Murder and mutilation is a common annoyance.
Those who like their coffee with tons of cream and sugar and their horror and humor served up pitch black will find this "Aunt Martha" delightful as much as dreadful. Pick up your clothes, brush your teeth and be sure to pay this host(ess) with the mostest a visit!
by Greg Goodsell (1998)
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