SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS (1971) ***

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is an almost indescribable experience, but I’ll do my best to describe it.  You’d think with a title like that, it would be one of those “hag horror” films like Hush… Hush… Sweet Charlotte or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, but you’d be wrong.  It’s more of a gay crime melodrama.  Imagine if Andy Milligan made movies in sunny Miami instead of Staten Island.  That almost does it justice.  Almost. 

Paul (Abe Zwick in his first and last credited role) and Stanley (Wayne Crawford, making his debut) are lovers on the run from the law.  They flee Baltimore and hide out in Miami where Paul dresses up in drag and poses as Stanley’s Aunt Martha.  He also gets extremely agitated whenever Stanley threatens to blow their cover.  As “Aunt Martha”, he wigs out (no pun intended) whenever he catches Stanley making time with women and kills off his prospective lovers.  Tensions begin to boil over when a junkie pal named Hubert (Don Craig) shows up snooping around for the pair’s loot of stolen jewels. 

Very few people were making gay-themed exploitation flicks like this in the early ‘70s.  Heck, I don’t think anyone ever made them quite like this.  (Don’t worry.  There’s a decent amount of female T & A, murder, and gruesome shocks sprinkled about to appease every kind of exploitation fan, regardless of your sexual preference.)  It has an oddball kookiness about it that is hard to deny.  It’s certainly a one-of-a-kind experience, that’s for sure.  This was the first and only directorial effort by Tom Casey, who also wrote the incredible Flesh Feast.  Maybe Casey realized Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things was going to be one tough act to follow so he quit while he was ahead. 

Zwick and Crawford are memorable in the lead roles.  They have a screwy chemistry together and the scenes of them playing house have an off-kilter Odd Couple vibe to them.  Also, be on the lookout for none other than Brad F. (Blood Freak) Grinter and William (Blood Feast) Kerwin, who show up late in the film as detectives. 

AKA:  Damn You, Aunt Martha.  AKA:  Aunt Martha.