Review #365: Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)


Twelve More Slays of Christmas #7 - Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

Watch it here on Tubi!

Note: This is a small thing but IMDB and Wikipedia list the title as "Whoever" Slew Auntie Roo, but everywhere else I've found anything about it on the internet, it's simply "Who" Slew Auntie Roo. I don't know why this is, usually in the case where a movie has multiple similar titles IMDB has the official one and there's a little section for "Alternate Title", but this one has nothing of the sort. It's weird.

Speaking of weird things about the title, though, what's the deal with that title? It makes this film sound like a whodunit murder mystery, which it very much is not. Auntie Roo (spoilers) dies at the very end of the film, and nobody is wondering who did it- it looks to the authorities like an accident, and the only people who suspect anything otherwise are the people responsible. In truth, this is a kidnapping movie, not unlike 1990's Misery (though quite a bit less intense). I understand wanting to keep the details of the film ambiguous, but the title really gives an incredibly misleading expectation of what the movie is going to be about. (Apparently the original title was going to be Gingerbread House, which is more accurate to the film, but I gotta be honest and say it doesn't catch my attention like the one we got. So I guess that's it, it's clickbait as far back as 1972!)

Anyway, Who Slew Auntie Roo is a loose adaptation of Hansel & Gretel (at least, that's how most websites describe it- there's definitely similar motifs and that story gets brought up numerous times in the film, but in my opinion it's its own thing- but whatever). Auntie Roo is a rich American widow living in the UK, who invites a group of kids from a local orphanage to stay at her estate for a couple days so they can celebrate Christmas. Two of the children, a brother and sister named Christopher and Katy, tag along and Auntie Roo instantly becomes enamored by Katy, believing her to be the reincarnated spirit of her daughter, Katharine, who died in an accident many years before. So Auntie Roo does what she can to convince Katy to stay, doting on her at every opportunity, eventually resorting to kidnapping when Christopher refuses the offer. Christopher breaks in to try and free his sister, and gets caught up in a deadly game with this woman's quickly-declining mental health.

Overall I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would- like I said I went in with quite different expectations than what was delivered, but what's told is a pretty solid story that moves along at a nice clip and all of the characters and goings-on are pretty interesting. There's a subplot about the butler and maid extorting money from Auntie Roo and taking advantage of her attempts to use a medium to contact her dead daughter, and it went exactly where I expected it to go- but I mean that in the best way possible. The characters behaved like real people, to the point where I thought to myself, "Well, in this sort of situation, Albie would probably do THIS...." and then Albie did exactly that. There was even a point at the end where Christopher does something that made no sense to me at the time (going back for his sister's forgotten teddy bear) that once I remembered a detail from earlier in the film, I smacked my forehead and said, "Duh, that's exactly what he would do."

It's not the greatest movie in the world, and it could probably be shorted up a little bit (particularly the sequence after both kids have been held captive went just a tad longer than I would have liked) but it was surprisingly solid and I'm glad I watched it!

Overall Rating: 8/10 Keys Hanging Just Out of Reach

Behind the Scenes Drama: Auntie Roo's maid, Clarine, is played by Judy Cornwell (whom I know from her role as Hyacinth's sister Daisy on Keeping Up Appearances). According to Cornwell's memoirs, the lead actress Shelly Winters was jealous of Cornwell's good reviews from her role in 1970's Wuthering Heights so she insisted the writers cut her role from the movie almost entirely. Altogether, she only has maybe five minutes of screentime!

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