"One of Corman's last pictures (as a director, that is), Bloody Mama went back to one of his prime obsessions - female gangsters - to tell the tale of Ma Barker. An extraordinary cast - Shelley Winters, Pat Hingle, Don Stroud, Diane Varsi, Bruce Dern and Robert DeNiro - act out a pathological tale of sex, violence and revenge. Raped by her brothers at age seven, Ma Barker (Winters) grows up, has four psychopathic sons, and they all set out on a career of crime set against the Great Depression; their reign of terror ends only when the police gun them down, Ma being the last to fall. The script was written by Robert (Wild In the Streets) Thom. Shelley Winters didn't want to make another gangster movie, she wanted to make a serious picture; Corman humored her. Bloody Mama turned out to be an extremely violent film, probably the most violent Corman ever made - and it proved both popular and influential; like many earlier Corman pictures, it became a genre prototype, spawning many imitations. Followers of Corman thematics will note the importance of eyes in the movie - i.e., the kids can't kill Hingle because his eyes look like their father's. It's not a particularly likable picture, but it's extremely powerful."