The programming minds behind the Enzian’s monthly midnight film series Freaky Fridays have earned our trust as archeologists of forgotten Floridian B-movie treasures with screenings of Miami Connection and William Grefé’s peerless killer-jellyfish-man Sting of Death. This week yields the results of their latest celluloid dig, the 1971 cult oddity Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things.
A trippy, campy slasher-crime flick filmed in South Florida, Aunt Martha tells the story of two Baltimore bank robbers, Paul and Stanley, who hide out in the suburbs of Miami after a heist. Paul assumes the identity of elderly “Aunt Martha” (because that’s where the retirees go?) and slowly unravels, culminating in, well, mayhem.
It’s a wild, over-the-top ride with plenty of humor (intentional and not), DIY gusto in the filming, some bloody kill scenes, jarring Odd Couple-style banter, hippie freakouts and cheesecake oomph.
“To me, Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is really one of the quintessential Florida films. There are other similar films like Satan’s Children and She-Man: A Story of Fixation, but the sheer intensity of the performances — especially one-and-done actor Abe Zwick as the titular Aunt Martha — and the weird mishmash of the plot just take it over the top,” said queer film historian Elizabeth Purchell, who did a commentary track for the Vinegar Syndrome reissue of the film, to OW.
“Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is really one of the quintessential Florida films,” says queer film historian Elizabeth Purchell.
“There simply isn’t another film quite like it, and with Florida heading in the direction it has been, I think it’s more important now than ever to highlight films like it that show just how queer the state always has been,” Purchell says.
Freaky Fridays programmer Tim Anderson further filled us in with some historical insight:
“Aunt Martha is such an anomaly, as it was made for the regional drive-in movie circuit in the south. Specifically shot in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, for local consumption. In fact, records show it only played in like two drive-ins and was then basically ‘lost’. The director Thomas Casey was active in the Florida exploitation scene, working with Herschell Gordon Lewis and William Grefé. But this was his only film as director.”
Though audiences at the time were baffled by what was promised as a crime drama with a slasher twist, for modern audiences who have already seen Pink Flamingos (more Baltimore!), The Room and Plan 9 From Outer Space, this is a film that succeeds almost in spite of itself.
“I think it ranks higher than films like Vapors, Saturday Night at the Baths or even mainstream fare like Midnight Cowboy and Boys in the Band as a fascinating piece of queer history,” says Anderson.
See for yourself this Friday night at the witching hour.
And make sure not to wake Aunt Martha when you’re heading out.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2023.