"Auntie Roo" is marketed a a "crazy old dame" movie, but it's very confusing in it's intentions. Here we have Shelley Winters playing a batty old lady with a large mansion, who likes to invite children across for parties to ease her loneliness. Unfortunately two of the children get a bit nosey and Auntie Roo's dark secrets come tumbling out.
What's wrong here is that the plot doesn't really give the viewer any clearly defined direction. The film uses the Hansel and Gretel fable as a parallel, and the constant reference to this subject matter does get a bit silly. Auntie Roo is not the witch that the children think she is, in fact the children terrorise her more than she does them. Maybe that was the twist that they were going for but I don't know if the story is supposed to paint the poor, misguided Roo as the villain, or the annoying children.
It's all over the place. Who are you supposed to like? Nobody? Shelley Winters does a good job of acting here, but sadly the two children (Mark Lester and Chloe Franks) do not. I can't imagine anyone coming away at the end of this film feeling satisfied.
What's wrong here is that the plot doesn't really give the viewer any clearly defined direction. The film uses the Hansel and Gretel fable as a parallel, and the constant reference to this subject matter does get a bit silly. Auntie Roo is not the witch that the children think she is, in fact the children terrorise her more than she does them. Maybe that was the twist that they were going for but I don't know if the story is supposed to paint the poor, misguided Roo as the villain, or the annoying children.
It's all over the place. Who are you supposed to like? Nobody? Shelley Winters does a good job of acting here, but sadly the two children (Mark Lester and Chloe Franks) do not. I can't imagine anyone coming away at the end of this film feeling satisfied.