WHO SLEW AUNTIE ROO?

UK, 1972, 91 minutes Colour.
Shelley Winters, Ralph Richardson, Mark Lester, Chloe Franks, Lionel Jeffries, Hugh Griffith, Rosalie Crutchley, Pat Heywood.
Directed by Curtis Harrington.

Who Slew Auntie Roo? is a macabre thriller, co-written by veteran Hammer horror-writer Jimmy Sangster (who then moved to the United States for a number of telemovie thrillers) and directed by Curtis Harrington, noted for such thrillers as Games, What's The Matter With Helen?. This film has an outstanding cast with Shelley Winters and Ralph Richardson in the lead. The film offers Mark Lester an opportunity for a macabre thriller after his role in Oliver. His sister is played by Chloe Franks who was to be the young Frederica in the film version of A Little Night Music. There is an interesting supporting cast of English character actors.

The film is based on the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. This becomes quite explicit as young Christopher becomes more and more suspicious of Auntie Roo and interprets what she is doing in the light of the witch of Hansel and Gretel. He in turn destroys her. Offbeat and macabre.

1. An entertaining horror thriller? Murder and madness? The style of the title?

2. British production? Period atmosphere? A blend of realism and the overtones of macabre fairytale? Auntie Roo and her affluence? Reality and unreality? orphans, the Poorhouse, a fairy godmother turned witch? Murderous orphans?

3. Audience familiarity with the tale of Hansel and Gretel? The film as a sombre variation? A cautionary tale? Christopher telling more of the story and making explicit the references? Eventually the fairy tale being taken step by step? The shift to seeing Auntie Roo as a witch? The justification of this point of view and therefore the morality of the children's behaviour?

4. Mrs. Rosie Forrest, Auntie Roo,- Shelley Winters' presence, boisterous style? An ordinary and kindly woman? Her stage career? The death of her daughter, the seance, her credulity, open to blackmail? The coffin and the odd details of her vigil at her daughter's coffin? Her memories of her death? Madness? The kindly aspects of her personality - Christmas, entertaining the orphans, singing, the gifts, Katie and the bear? Her delight with Katie, Katie becoming her dead daughter, her wanting to adopt her and keep her in the house? Christopher and his jealousy, anger? The problems of whether they should stay or not? The meal, the mutual entrapment, the prison, the pork? Her seeming to be a witch? In reality a poor misguided and distraught mother? Her being robbed by the servants? The build-up to the fire, her death? Auntie Roo as a witch or not?

5. The orphanage, the stock characters managing the orphanage, the touch of cruelty? The children and their silence, their running away, the choices for the party? Katie and Christopher excluded? The emphasis on behaviour and manners? The two children going to the party? Auntie Roo's welcome? Katie's attachment to the bear and Mrs. Forrest's reaction? Christopher and his attitudes, jealousy? The discovery of the truth - and acting out detail by detail the destruction for Hansel and Gretel?

6. Mr. Benton as a charlatan, the seance and the effects, his drinking? The two servants and their complicity in the seances, the blackmail and the robbery?

7. The opening with the Dickensian atmosphere of the orphanage - and the transition to popular Gothic horror?

8. Themes of madness, normality? Violence and amorality? The innocence and evil of children? Adults as their victims? An appropriate modern variation of Hansel and Gretel?