Great Film overall

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The working title was: "Don't Spank Baby". Wayne Crawford went on to become a successful producer, films like Valley Girl, Night of the Comet and others, even though he wasn't too terrific in this little Gem. And little known Abe Zwick should have gotten tons of work from this film but didn't. Filmed at Moberly Studios in Hollywood Florida, on the same lot the early Tarzan movies were filmed. This film is definitely for those who appreciate the abstract. The movie was originally shot with much more bloody graphic slasher scenes. For reasons only known to Tom Casey the Director, the bloody slasher scenes were given a tab of LSD, and replaced by Flash Editing. Even though this version is worthy of a look for those so inclined, in my opinion the original version would have packed the punch needed to make this a full on Slasher 70's Cult Classic.

Don't be deceived by the misleading title, because the truth is that Aunt Martha CONSTANTLY does dreadful things. In fact, "Aunt Martha" is one baadaass brick of a Bea Arthur lookin' transvestite, on the lam after a bank robbery and living incognito with Stanley, "her" virile, but dope-addled lover. And while she may seem like a charm-schooled and self composed hostess, Aunt Martha's infernal hostilities are often roused by the winsome young girls that follow Stanley home from time to time. Quick to exterminate these potential threats in a variety of gruesome ways, Aunt Martha proves herself to be a most formidable adversary when it comes to competing for Stanley's affections.Delightfully off-hand weirdness, AUNT MARTHA is archetypal of the anything-goes craziness of low-budget 70s cinema...a film so abstractly imagined and impulsively realized, it alights with a desultory otherness so reverently sincere that it steals a place in your heart usually reserved for awkwardly cross-bred puppies. Forgivable of its general inelegance, this is a fine specimen of a most exiguous film species.7/10

This is a very delightful film that should appeal to horror fans and those searching for offbeat and forgotten gems. POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.Two small-time Baltimore crooks flee to Miami to hide out in a rented home in the suburbs - only, they aren't your ordinary petty thieves! No, sir! Instead, director/writer Thomas Casey has masterfully cast them as a gay couple, Paul (aka Aunt Martha) being the domineering, cross-dressing chief-boot-knocker, with Stanley as the callow, somewhat-submissive teen-hippie. Stanley (played by Wayne Crawford) is a child-like idiot (just turning nineteen) who, despite being wanted for murder, drives a colorful attention-grabbing van around (that actually has the word `door' painted on the door). And while he may indeed have a few character inconsistencies (a homosexual, coke-snorting hippie with hang-ups who knows how to deliver babies via C-section?), Paul (played beautifully by Abe Zwick in his only known role) is simply killer! He's got that over-the-top delivery that sometimes sounds ad-libbed, reminiscent of the many memorable characters of John Barrymore and Gene Wilder - mixing deadpan humor with over-enunciated words and psychotic facial expressions.Partly to throw off the heat, Paul dons the guise of Stanley's "Aunt Martha," dressing in drag and doing the cooking and cleaning while Stanley jacks around with the Woodstock generation (drugged-out dudes in leather vests and skanky nude chicks). Extremely jealous (and tipping a hat to Hitchcock's `Psycho'), Aunt Martha then attempts to slice-and-dice any girls (referred to as whore, sluts, or bitches) trying to get in Stanley's snakeskin pants (which he never takes off throughout the film's entirety). Zwick's performance is a joy to watch and his dialogue is absolutely hilarious. He embodies elements of Vaudevillian slapstick, making even the subtle act of smoking a cigar a work of art! And the scene where Martha yells at the phone then throws darts at a poster of a girl's ass while swigging beer is priceless!Another character, Hubert (Don Craig), shows up toward the end to make things even more baffling - he's a double-crossing heroin junkie in his 60s who once worked in a drug-store in Baltimore but, for some unknown reason, has followed our dynamic duo all the way to Miami (through the power of the Zodiac) because he has nowhere else to go (in reality, he's just another petty thief with horrible rationalization skills after some jewels). And, to make things even more bizarre, he's a junior astrologist bordering on analytical psychology.The film drags on a little at the end (really, what's with that Caesarian section scene?) -- and should have been edited down a bit or reinforced with more crucial scenes, but director Thomas Casey has essentially (and effectively) crossed Truman Capote's `In Cold Blood' and `Psycho' with TV fare like `Bosom Buddies,' `The Odd Couple,' and `That '70s Show.' Now, he needs to turn this into a weekly series for HBO, or make a prequel that explains the whole odd arrangement. Or he could make a sequel that finds Paul surviving the gunshot wound and being released from prison thirty years later as a rehabilitated man (or so you'd think). The possibilities are endless!`Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things' is easily one of the most interesting B-movies I've ever seen!

The idea of this film seems interesting enough. Paul and Stanley are two gay jewel thieves. Paul dresses up as "Aunt Martha", Stanley's supposed aunt. This is done to evade authorities, as it happens to be they are wanted for murder. Stanley is also a big time hippie who drives a colorful van, picks up the girls and does a lot of coke. Paul hates it when Stanley brings home girls and goes psycho each time, killing the female guest. The premise is original and entertaining enough to be a classic yet the movie misses it's mark. It's not really the fault of the cast, they do a good job. It's the screenplay and the development of the plot, after the initial set up, the film falls a little flat and fails to live up to it's potential. I would still recommend this one though, if you enjoy obscure strange films.