Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

Dreadfully Boring

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A not so great rift on the Hansel & Gretel story. Shelley Winters is a wealthy widow living in the English countryside. She keeps the corpse of her dead daughter in a coffin and sings it to sleep each night. After hosting a Christmas party for the local orphans, Winters kidnaps little Chloe Franks as a replacement daughter. Franks's brother (a post-Oliver! Mark Lester) tries to get her back. Together Lester & Franks try to outwit the "witch." There's not a single thrill in this film, which is surprising because it's directed by the highly creative Curtis Harrington. There's no character motivation behind the slightest things the actors do and, truth be told, Winters is not particularly interesting in her dull role. Ralph Richardson adds a spark or two as a fake medium and Hugh Griffith appears briefly as "the Pigman." The music by Kenneth V. Jones is forgettable and adds very little. The script was worked on Jimmy Sangster, who worked on a lot of the best Hammer films. Gavin Lambert, of all people, is credited as having provided additional dialog.

A kindly widow turns out to be as nutty as the goodies she makes for her visiting children at Christmas time, and is unmasked by two run-aways she "takes in". Shelley Winters is all over the place here as she doesn't hold anything back in her desire to provide both laughs and chills. The problem is in the script because there is never any indication that she was anything more than a grieving mother who saw in Mark Lester's little sister a replacement for the daughter she lost in a freak accident. This changes the mood of the film once her huge mansion becomes Macadamia Manor.In spite of character inconsistencies, the film remains engrossing, featuring cameo appearances by some of England's greatest character performers. An interesting historical note for film history is to see Lester ("Oliver!") sharing scenes with the little boy who played Tiny Tim in the musical version of "Scrooge". A truly gruesomely frightening ending may have kids with nightmares, so share it with them cautiously.

Former stage star Auntie Roo (Shelley Winters) is the love of orphans in town come Christmas time as she invites ten lucky kids to come spend the night at her countryside estate on Christmas Eve. Two kids, Chris (Mark Lester) and Katy (Chloe Franks) Combs, who didn't make the cut sneak along to the mansion and soon their host is infatuated with Katy because she reminds her of her own missing daughter, who she has been trying to contact through séances. I'm still getting my Curtis Harrington freak on apparently as I watched this horror-thriller for the first time last night and found it to be fantastic. Reuniting after the equally great WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN (1971), director Harrington and lead Winters sure have the hysterics down in the story that draws its inspiration from Hanzel & Gretel. One of the more surprising things is both of the kid leads are also really good as well and you'll thank yourself for watching OLIVER himself get into a brawl with Winters. The rest of the cast - Ralph Richardson as a psychic, Lionel Jeffries as a policeman, Michael Gothard as the creepy butler - are fantastic too. The film has tons of Xmas spirit and, best of all, Harrington knows how to properly convey that old dark house feel perfectly. Definitely recommended if you haven't seen it.

I honestly wonder why the entire production crew of "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" opted to use such an unusual and revealing narrative structure? Before the opening credits even, it's made distinctively clear that Rosie Forrest (a.k.a Auntie Roo") is mentally disturbed and dangerous, as she sings lullabies to a cradle that holds the mummified leftovers of a young girl's body. Yet, after this bizarre introduction, the film nevertheless attempts to convince us that she's an endearing old lady who throws Christmas parties for poor orphans and even tries to get into contact with the spirit of her deceased daughter through séances. I'm no horror script-writer, unfortunately, but wouldn't it have been much more effective if the macabre secret in Rosie's attic only got mentioned near the end of the movie? Anyway, despite some severely incomprehensible continuity-errors and other flaws, "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo" is an entertaining piece of American 70's horror that features surprisingly great acting performances and some memorable moments of ingeniousness. The story is presented as an adult variation to "Hansel & Gretel", which is definitely one of the eeriest and most gruesome fairy-tales ever told. When a dozen of orphans arrive at Auntie Roo's mansion to celebrate Christmas, she sees in beautiful Katy the reincarnation of her own deceased daughter. She seduces the young girl with toys and privileges, and when the rest of the children returns to the orphanage, Katy stays in the mansion, locked up in a room. Her courageous older brother escapes from the orphanage to search for Katy and discovers Auntie Roo's demented secrets. All the supposedly horrific plot-twists entirely miss their effect, for obvious reasons, and the playful character (as implied already by the silly title) prevents the film from ever getting disturbing. Director Curtis Harrington occasionally succeeds in capturing a tense moment, most notably when Christopher tricks the loony old lady and seizes her keys, and he also sustains a competent pacing. The film definitely also features a lot of atmospheric scenery, such as uncanny rooms full of old dolls and a garden shed filled with a magician's attributes. Shelley Winters is sublime as the crazy old woman and especially the talented child actors are a delight, for a change. The script also should have given some more attention to the interesting supportive characters, like the odd butler Albie and the joyful meat-deliverer Mr. Harrison. "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" is by no means a great horror film, but it's fun enough to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon or during a theme-night with friends.