So much average

People are voting emotionally.

Great Film overall

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A kindly widow turns out to be as nutty as the goodies she makes for her visiting children at Christmas time, and is unmasked by two run-aways she "takes in". Shelley Winters is all over the place here as she doesn't hold anything back in her desire to provide both laughs and chills. The problem is in the script because there is never any indication that she was anything more than a grieving mother who saw in Mark Lester's little sister a replacement for the daughter she lost in a freak accident. This changes the mood of the film once her huge mansion becomes Macadamia Manor.In spite of character inconsistencies, the film remains engrossing, featuring cameo appearances by some of England's greatest character performers. An interesting historical note for film history is to see Lester ("Oliver!") sharing scenes with the little boy who played Tiny Tim in the musical version of "Scrooge". A truly gruesomely frightening ending may have kids with nightmares, so share it with them cautiously.

i probably should have given this perfect little horror ditty a higher rating. it's so perfectly executed (ha horror pun) and well done(ha another pun) that you want to go overboard and give it a ten or a nine, but because of it's light simplicity that might be overstating. i think i was overwhelmed by the stylish perfectionism of this that i wanted to overlook a certain lack of importance in general.a overall sense of development is put aside somewhat in order to achieve a sense of classic, elegant style and perfection. this film may not be as developed or as good as Aldrich's 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane', but it is less rough around the edges and achieves more dignity and refinement. there is also a slyer sense of subtly to the morbidity here and Winter's performance is less repelling than Davis's all though no less chilling.to say this is comparative to Aldrich or the Hammer greats does not mean that the films of H. Nicholson and Z. Arkoff for American International are anything to dismiss lightly either. and this film proves their taste(ha pun) as film producers once again.this is probably one of the best tellings and updatings of the 'Hansel and Gretel' story ever. the psychological take on the whole thing is blood curdling and a horrifying twist on who is evil and who is a menace. the likely culprit here is everyone. just great. no one is blameless. ain't it the God's truth.this is one of the best ways to present 'Hansel and Gretel'. why stop the paranoia aimed at one individual? as long as we are being paranoid lets take on everything including ourselves? if you truly go into this gingerbread house with a thinking and open mind little ones, this is one gingerbread house you won't come out of so easily.

The first part is as delightful as the cakes,the sweets ,the lollipops and the gingerbread men which the good lady serves to the orphans she welcomes for her Christmas party in her Gothic desirable mansion.This mysterious woman,with a racy past ,was married to a magician (remarkable scene when the two children venture into the old house full of magic props where once more,we are told that children are not necessarily devoid of cruelty.After a seance in the dark with a charlatan medium,Roo (Winters)is quite sure that one of the orphans is her late daughter ,who rose from the dead. She wants to keep her in her house but her brother (Mark "Oliver" Lester ) is not prepared to accept it.He tells his sister about Grimm's sinister fairytale "Hansel und Gretel" in the gingerbread house.The first hour is brilliant:the Christmas atmosphere is perfectly captured.The crepuscular quality of the film is tangible .Few other films of the seventies offer so many associations of guarded privacy and locked rooms,in such dreamlike darkness.Shelley Winters is outstanding particularly in that short scene when she goes from tears to a good laugh.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.Watch it anyway:its incredible several moments make it all worthwhile.Like this?Try these...."Les amants criminels" François Ozon 1996"The night of the hunter" Charles Laughton 1955"The nanny" Holt 1965"Bunny Lake is missing" Otto Preminger 1965

I honestly wonder why the entire production crew of "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" opted to use such an unusual and revealing narrative structure? Before the opening credits even, it's made distinctively clear that Rosie Forrest (a.k.a Auntie Roo") is mentally disturbed and dangerous, as she sings lullabies to a cradle that holds the mummified leftovers of a young girl's body. Yet, after this bizarre introduction, the film nevertheless attempts to convince us that she's an endearing old lady who throws Christmas parties for poor orphans and even tries to get into contact with the spirit of her deceased daughter through séances. I'm no horror script-writer, unfortunately, but wouldn't it have been much more effective if the macabre secret in Rosie's attic only got mentioned near the end of the movie? Anyway, despite some severely incomprehensible continuity-errors and other flaws, "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo" is an entertaining piece of American 70's horror that features surprisingly great acting performances and some memorable moments of ingeniousness. The story is presented as an adult variation to "Hansel & Gretel", which is definitely one of the eeriest and most gruesome fairy-tales ever told. When a dozen of orphans arrive at Auntie Roo's mansion to celebrate Christmas, she sees in beautiful Katy the reincarnation of her own deceased daughter. She seduces the young girl with toys and privileges, and when the rest of the children returns to the orphanage, Katy stays in the mansion, locked up in a room. Her courageous older brother escapes from the orphanage to search for Katy and discovers Auntie Roo's demented secrets. All the supposedly horrific plot-twists entirely miss their effect, for obvious reasons, and the playful character (as implied already by the silly title) prevents the film from ever getting disturbing. Director Curtis Harrington occasionally succeeds in capturing a tense moment, most notably when Christopher tricks the loony old lady and seizes her keys, and he also sustains a competent pacing. The film definitely also features a lot of atmospheric scenery, such as uncanny rooms full of old dolls and a garden shed filled with a magician's attributes. Shelley Winters is sublime as the crazy old woman and especially the talented child actors are a delight, for a change. The script also should have given some more attention to the interesting supportive characters, like the odd butler Albie and the joyful meat-deliverer Mr. Harrison. "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" is by no means a great horror film, but it's fun enough to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon or during a theme-night with friends.