Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? on Hammer Blu-ray in August

Shelley Winters chews the scenery as a demented ex-actress whose attic holds a dark secret in Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, an energetic slice of festive hagsploitation from cult director Curtis Harrington.

Gaslit by her domestic staff in cahoots with a phony medium, Auntie Roo’s tenuous grip on sanity snaps when she kidnaps young Katy during an annual Christmas party for local orphans. Unable to convince anyone that his sister’s life is in imminent danger, Katy’s brother must try to rescue her himself.

With a script co-written by Hammer’s Jimmy Sangster, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?‘s black-humoured riff on Hansel and Gretel co-stars Ralph Richardson, Lionel Jeffries and Mark Lester and has been painstakingly restored by Hammer in 2K from the original film negatives.