I note that most of the reviewers for SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS are quite kind to the film, but I'm afraid that I'm of an otherwise opinion. Vinegar Syndrome recently put a high definition version of this movie onto Amazon Prime but I ended up hating it as I have done with the majority of Vinegar Syndrome's output thus far. What hints at '70s grindhouse horror is in fact a lame-o comedy about cross-dressing and edgy homosexual relations.

The film is about a couple of guys who may or may not be homosexuals. One of them likes to fool around with girls in endless nude and would-be sex scenes while the other dresses up as a woman and looks on resentfully. The horror comes from the post-coitus scenes in which the vulnerable women are subsequently stalked and slashed by the transvestite killer. Shades of PSYCHO are present in that premise, but the lousy execution and unfunny, over the top acting styles turned me right off. Things just sort of bumble along until the climax which is a joke by anybody's standards.

"Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things" is a guilty pleasure, pure and simple. While in some ways a terrible film, it is nevertheless fun to watch and enjoyable...provided you are a bit twisted!

Paul and Stanley are lovers and to the outside world they are Aunt Martha and her nephew, Stanley. What?! Well, it seems Paul is a homicidal maniac and is wanted by the police for his many atrocitites. Yes, Paul is an angry guy who has the bad habit of murdering any lady who pays attention to Stanley...because Stanley is his. As for Stanley, he's not homicidal but he is a bit of an idiot. Together, you know that sooner or later the law will catch up to them.

The acting is often cheesy and the production looks like it was made for next to nothing. Yet, inexplicably, it is funny in a strange way...almost like a John Waters film. Worth seeing IF you are an oddball...like me. Otherwise, you'll probably find it all pretty sick and stupid.

By the way, if you want to see it, understand that there is a fair amount of nudity in addition to all the killing...so it's NOT a film I'd recommend to kids or your mother.

Overbearing Paul (superbly played with unbridled ferocity and intensity by Abe Zwick) and his infantile dimwit partner Stanley (an amiably dopey portrayal by Wayne Crawford) are a pair of jewel thieves on the lam from the law who decide to lay low in a small Florida town. Paul devises the ingenious idea of pretending to be Stanley's dowdy Aunt Martha as a clever means of eluding detection. Problems arise when Stanley threatens to blow their cover by hanging out with several local tramps.

Writer/director Thomas Casey concocts an arrestingly off-kilter plot that offers a jarring and peculiar, yet still absorbing and enjoyable unholy mix of raw sudden violence, seething homo-eroticism (domineering homosexual Paul is clearly carrying a torch for the hopelessly awkward and inept Stanley),raging jealousy, freaky cross-dressing, and even some tasty gratuitous female nudity tossed in for trashy good measure. The fraught relationship between Paul and Stanley gives this picture an extra deliciously demented kick; the scenes with an enraged Paul scolding Stanley for being such a dope-addled screw-up are positively hysterical. Zwick and Crawford do sterling work in the leads; they receive sound support from Don Craig as bothersome down his luck junkie Hubert, Robin Hughes as alluring brunette Vicki, and Yanka Mann as pesky neighbor Mrs. Adams. Edmund Gibson's stark cinematography boasts a few funky psychedelic visual flourishes. The groovy film library score hits the sweet far-out spot. A delightfully singular doozy.