(1970)
Overall: MEH
After a three year break, director Curtis Harrington returned with the ABC Movie of the Week How Awful About Allan. An adaptation of Henry Farrell's novel of the same name, (the author also penning his own screenplay here), and one of the gallons of television productions that Aaron Spelling threw his name on, the film scored Anthony Perkins in the lead as well as Julie Harris as his sister, both of whom hold up in the family house eight months after Perikins' title character accidentally caused the death of their father due to a fire. Left "psychologically blind" from the traumatic incident, the plot plays out with Perkins either being gaslit by those around him or legitimately losing his grip on reality, fearing that his home is being visited by a shady intruder and no one believing him in the process. While the story has little in the way of uniqueness and it suffers from a monotonous structure, Harrington throws in some spooky aesthetics here or there, with details like a whispery-voiced tenant, Perkins' foggy vision, and Laurence Rosenthal's unsettling score helping things along. Perkins is also as effortlessly charismatic as ever, making the whole thing watchable if not altogether good.
(1971)
Overall: MEH
The third psycho-biddy horror film from the mind of author/screenwriter Henry Farrell, What's the Matter with Helen? has Shelley Winters giving people what they expected of her at this point in her career, namely portraying a pudgy ole kook whose mental instability results in violence. Her and Debbie Reynolds playing a set of disgraced mothers with sons that have murdered people gives the premise a macabre starting off point, but this is juxtaposed with a lot of cutesy song and dance numbers between children, as well as Reynolds showing that she has still got it. Director Curtis Harrington stages the ghastly bits well and the period decor enhances the old timey campiness, though the story is not as nuanced or disturbing as Farrell's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, by comparison. The actors are in fine form even if Winters screams and hams it up to the heavens as a Bible-quoting and knife-wielding closeted lesbian, but the movie could afford to shave off twenty or so minutes as it feels its length in getting to the inevitable and over-the-top conclusion.
(1971)
Overall: MEH
Another case of an overabundance of screenwriters resulting in a confused and sloppy end product, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, (Who Slew Auntie Roo?), has four people credited to concocting a modern day "Hansel and Gretel" revamp, and it shows. Too many plot elements go nowhere and though the ending is appropriately disastrous and enough in keeping with the fairy tale source material, it is also abrupt and offers some perplexing insight into the main children protagonists. There is a cold brute of a orphanage head mistress, a phony psychic, a conniving butler, and then we have the kids and Aunt Roo herself who all could be seen as villains at one point. Only the title character's story arc is seen all the way through, which makes for several needlessly winding avenues to go down along the way. On the plus side, director Curtis Harrington, (who also directed Shelley Winters in the same year's similar psycho-biddy thriller What's the Matter with Helen?), frames some suspenseful moments and ideal horror images here or there, plus Winters herself is sufficiently hammy, so it hits the mediocre mark at least.
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