Somewhere in the idyllic suburbs of Miami sits a quaint home. If you didn’t know the residents of the house, you’d expect it to be occupied by a lovely middle-class family – in fact, this is exactly what everyone thinks. What outsiders don’t realize is that the owner of the house is “Aunt Martha”, who is in reality a bloodthirsty criminal named Paul (Abe Zwick), who lives there with his “nephew”, the free-spirited young man Stanley (Scott Lawrence). The two men are fleeing from the authorities, after Stanley apparently killed a woman in cold blood, with the FBI being hot on their trail, necessitating the creation of Aunt Martha, who acts as the protective guardian of the disturbed young man, which successfully fools the local neighbourhood. Beyond this, Paul and Stanley are also in a committed but incredibly toxic relationship, with the former using the guise of Aunt Martha to act out his deepest fantasies, asserting them on his young boyfriend, who is often too heavily under the influence of drugs to notice. Their masquerade works, but only for a short while, since not only is their cover gradually slipping in plausibility, the neighbours are growing increasingly suspicious of this new family that suddenly moved in – and if there is anything living in a suburb has demonstrated, is that the most hard-working police department isn’t any match for an inquisitive neighbour. However, will the residents of this charming little hamlet like what they see when they finally manage to peer over the barrier between fiction and reality, and come to realize the truth of the situation?

To paraphrase an oft-repeated but highly-resonant quote by John Waters, one needs to have good taste in order to appreciate bad taste. If someone knew the value of well-composed trash, it is Waters – however, his rise to fame as the proverbial Pope of Trash occurred almost concurrently to the creation of another masterful work of garbage, the wonderful Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things, which shares some profound similarities with the famed director’s work (both in terms of the tonal beats, and the narrative content, both films traversing nearly identical territory in some regards), but actually managed to possess some qualities that make it even more exemplary of his curiosities than much of what he made at the same time. Thomas Casey put together an absolute masterpiece of bad cinema, a film that is so poorly-made, badly written and filled with some of the most misguided performances of its era (as well as some subject matter that suggests that it should’ve maybe have been put to the side from the outset). However, like any terrible accident, we can’t help but feel curious to see the lengths to which damage has occurred – and for anyone with a penchant for some truly deranged but utterly brilliant filmmaking, you simply can’t go wrong with Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things, a film that is so perverted, its very existence overall (nevermind having been made half a century ago), is undeniably staggering, and makes us appreciate the power of underground cinema, especially in a time when it wasn’t as appreciated an art-form as it is today. Then again, even from a contemporary perspective, Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is still a bewildering achievement, and a film I’m still struggling to process.

The term “camp” has been thrown around so much over the past few decades, it has come to acquire several different meanings, all associated around the loose definition of heightened, ridiculous and sometimes even perverse artistry. However, Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is one of the rare films that embody the spirit of camp, in terms of the definition provided by Susan Sontag. This is mainly shown in the complete lack of self-awareness that this film seems to be conveying, which is the first indicator that it’s heading towards becoming a piece of unhinged camp brilliance. Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things genuinely believes itself to be a great film, and will do anything to prove to the audience that it is worth our time and consideration. Clearly constructing this story using the blueprint of films such as The Honeymoon Killers, a revolutionary piece of independent filmmaking that was released the year prior, Casey was trying to capture the gritty, unapologetically dark atmosphere that was gradually coming to the forefront in crime-based stories. The difference here is that this film doesn’t have much of a story to begin with – but when has this ever stopped someone who following their ambitions, regardless of how twisted they may be? Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things takes itself far more seriously than films with exponentially larger budgets and much bigger stakes – and its for this reason alone that Casey is an unconventional hero of trash cinema, since he may not have produced the masterful crime drama he thought he was, but instead turned in an absolute triumph of camp cinema in the best possible way.

We’ve collectively become so conditioned to trashy thrillers that are beyond pulp fiction, but rather weak stories held together by slender narrative threads, so Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things may have lost some of its radical poignancy. However, for a film made in 1971, it is remarkably progressive in some of its more notable themes (while still being oddly regressive for many of the same reasons). Despite being made half a century ago, this film features a very prominent queer relationship at its core – and while these two characters are certainly beyond perverted and troubled, the state of their relationship is more ambigious, and for all intents and purposes, it seems almost copacetic (at least until the main tension kicks in), like any long-term relationship. Some have also considered this as one of the pioneering drag movies, especially since it’s a film that moves beyond the one-dimensional concept that a man wearing a dress is automatically fodder for comedy. Instead, it moves towards a space of drag being a performance – perhaps not the most positive portrayal, but it does ignite a conversation, at least enough to look critically at the works that would come later. Sometimes it’s not always about normalizing issues, but simply starting the discussion in the first place, and while a pulpy exploitation thriller about a man who enjoys wearing women’s clothing isn’t necessarily the most obvious place for it, it’s difficult to imagine a film from this time doing it much better, especially one that was as serious as this one was. There are certainly problems with the gender issues at the core of the film, but any attempt to judge a decades-old film through contemporary standards is bound to bring out some irreconcilable problems, regardless of their importance.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things is a truly mad film, and Casey accomplished something incredibly odd with how he told this story. It uses violence in a way that is shocking without being excessive, and the humour that comes through as a result of its very strange approach to the material is accidental, but still strangely captivating. A camp film is one that we find ourselves laughing at, rather than with – it’s a contradiction of the more common tendency for camp films to be in on the joke, but the blissful unawareness of its own inane premise and bizarre execution is precisely what gives Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things such an obscure charm. This is not a film that has aged particularly well in any context – as an unconventional LGBTQIA+ story, or just as a crime film in general, it is quite dismal by every standard. It takes some level of patience and an appreciation of the occasional madness that comes when some individuals are afforded too much power to put their stories on screen – but if you are someone who can find the humour in some absolutely abhorrent but oddly hilarious filmmaking, you really can’t find a better time than Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things, a film that takes itself so seriously, it eventually has the adverse effect, and becomes one of the finest unconventional comedies of its era, and a film simply ripe for rediscovery.