Upon moving into her grandmother's San Francisco home, Ethel begins consuming massive amounts of food, repeatedly claiming that the institution employees had tried to starve her to death.

Ethel ignores calls from her doctor and attempts to cover up the odor of her decaying victims when Rosalie complains about the smell coming from the locked bedroom.

That night, Rosalie and John, unable to tolerate the stink coming from Mrs. Janowski's sealed room any longer, decide to break down the door in the morning.

[6] Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews awarded the film a grade B−, calling it "an offbeat and obscure trashy comical horror thriller".

[7] Bill Gibron of DVD Talk gave a grade 4½ out of a possible 5 to the film, and wrote, "Oh Lord, you've GOT to love Criminally Insane.

This unfettered freak show of a fright flick, starring the world's portliest serial killer (yes, even bigger than John Wayne Gacy and Leatherface, combined) is so downright depraved, so tantalizing in its turgid storytelling and squalid scenarios that words cannot begin to describe its baneful beauty" and "This is the type of movie the 70s are famous for, off the wall experiments in execution and excess.

Imagine Kathy Bates blown up like a balloon and running around brandishing a butcher's knife and you start to get the idea of how stellar this fright flick really is.

[8] Similarly, DVD Verdict's David Johnson wrote, "This flick is deserving of its title—it is absolutely crazy" and "This is just a fun, gruesome hour of weirdness".