WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO (1971)

Product Information

The film obviously loses steam in the last thirty minutes.Winters begins to overact to make up for the poor third of the script which is at once repetitive ,dull and predictable.We do not need Lester's voice over to understand that the children are Hansel and Gretel in the witch's den..As Freud and Bruno Bettelheim showed,fairy tales have an hidden meaning which the children unconsciously comprehend but the demonstration is pretty low brow. I may have just missed it, but I’m not aware of this film getting any airing on British TV. It’s certainly not in the public consciousness like many Brit horrors. But it’s also not hard to see why. It has the aesthetic of an early 70s children’s film (think Amazing Mr Blunden) but also dabbles in themes of mental illness, the occult, child cruelty and murder. The ending is remarkably amoral, considering at the beginning you’re thinking – “hey, this might be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang meets Oliver!”, and then you’re thinking “hang on, is this a Christmas film?” (yes, it is as it happens… although it’s unlikely to appear on a Sunday afternoon on Channel 5 like the rest of ‘em). The film was originally called The Gingerbread House which Harrington felt was the best title but it had to be changed due to its similarities to the Neil Simon play, The Gingerbread Lady. [8]

Perspective Flip: Despite multiple allusions to Hansel and Gretel, the "witch" is genuinely the kindly charitable old dear that she's outwardly presented as, and never so much as threatens anyone. Meanwhile, we're told that the "Hansel" stand-in is a troublemaker at the start by the orphanage's owner, which turns out to not be the false-flag one might expect. The ending solidifies this in gruesome fashion; turns out the movie was a murder mystery all along, and the victim was the sympathetic main character. Punk in the Trunk: Katy and Christopher aren't invited to Aunt Roo's Christmas party, so they hide in the trunk of the carriage taking the guests.

No doubt that Shelley Winters assumed the title role in Whoever Slew Auntie Roo for a chance to really chew the scenery. That's what's great about films like Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, you can overact to the max and no one will criticize you. Rosie "Aunt Roo" Forrest (Winters) is an American-born widow who lives at Forrest Grange, the English manor she inherited from her late husband, a famous magician. Each Christmas, she throws a party for the ten best-behaved children from the nearby Home for Orphaned and Destitute Children. One year, siblings Christopher (Lester) and Katy Coombs (Franks) arrive at her party. Aunt Roo becomes obsessed with Katy, who closely resembles her dead daughter Katharine, and wants to adopt her. But Christopher is suspicious. There's also a bit of similarity with American Gothic classic Night Of The Hunter in how the kids outwit Winters the way they outwitted Robert Mitchum in that film. Shelley Winters' performance still brings tears to my eyes when she cries and yearns for her dead child, only to find out she's been made a fool of - enough to drive anyone insane!

Dreaming of a White Christmas: Aunt Roo wakes up Katy and Christopher on Christmas morning by flinging open the curtains and shouting, "Children! Children! Wake up! Wake up! It's snowing!" A co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom, the film was shot at Shepperton Studios in London. Like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice, and What's the Matter with Helen?, it is one of the many films in the psycho-biddy subgenre. Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and the latter film, also starring Winters, were released on DVD as a MGM Midnite Movies Double Feature, and Winters requested that Helen's director Harrington direct the picture. It’s grief that pulls at the heart in this one. Perhaps in my own role as initiator of life, I’ve developed a way to empathize even in the adverse pathology of mania. In England, in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the American millionaire Mrs. Forrest (Shelley Winters) welcomes ten orphans from the local orphanage to spend the Christmas night with her. Mrs. Forrest misses her daughter Katherine, who died in a silly accident, and is exploited by the charlatan Mr. Benton (Ralph Richardson), her butler and her housekeeper in fake séances. When the sibling orphans Christopher Coombs (Mark Lester) and Katy Coombs (Chloe Franks) are not selected to go to the party, they sneak out to Mrs. Forrest's home and she welcomes them. She feels a great attraction for Katy, who resembles Katherine, but Christopher suspects that the widow is a witch. Five-Second Foreshadowing: In one of the final scenes of the movie, when Christopher brings firewood into the kitchen to place besides the open-flame stove, the establishing shot of him entering the room lingers long enough for everyone to see the mason jar on a counter in the foreground framed right next to him and read the clear, legible, painted-on label of "paraffin".What You Are in the Dark: the supposed-protagonist's actions at the film's climax, which retroactively flips the entire script on its head. Please, Don't Leave Me: Aunt Roo screams and begs Katy and Christopher not to leave her alone as they flee the burning house. It’s hard to pinpoint who the protagonist in the story is by the end of it all. Shelly Winters as the titular Auntie Roo naturally should be the villain. There is no condoning holding a child against its will no matter your level of anguish, but it is nearly impossible to not feel for her. Her kindness comes from grief but also a genuine source of altruism.