Mother's Day

MORD39 RATING: *** out of ****

Let's get something straight: This movie is offensive. It features an old mom urging her two misfit sons to brutally rape, torture, abuse, and murder young women for her entertainment. BUT IT'S BRILLIANT, AND WELL DONE FOR ITS TYPE.

With a shlocky piece of exploitation like this, we rarely if ever get a story and character development in the mix. The story of a group of young women planning a weekend getaway for their reunion celebration first provides us with background history detailing their personalities and personal problems. We get to know these girls...and once they get "caught" by the family of crazies, we share their dilemma.

I might also say that the surprise beginning really grabbed me (I first saw the movie in a theatre in 1980 and had no clue what was going to happen), and the ending is also pretty good.

As gruesome as these killers are in the film, you almost feel for them too. You sense that the imbecile sons are victims of their overbearring mother, and have had no proper upbringing to keep them from being such animals. Even mother is pathetic in a pitiful way.

MOTHER'S DAY will probably never be respected, and it is not for everybody. But I respect it and feel it stands out far in front of zillions of other exploitation/slasher knock-off's.

"Mother's Day" is great. It works as a horror film, as an exploitation film, and as a satire. It's definitely one of those movies that doesn't seem to have the ability or care to decide on whether it's feminist or misogynistic, but it is a sleazy horror movie and that's where the fanbase for this cult favorite lies. Still, I'm part of this film's following, and that means I like sleazy horror movies that are done right. So many lump things together in these black-and-white perspectives. If it's a sleazy horror movie, it seems that nothing good can be said about it unless it's an overrated bandwagon movie like "TCM". In this, we do have killer rednecks, but that doesn't make it a rip-off of "TCM". These people seem to have more in common with the guys from "Deliverance" than the guys in "TCM", and that's just one of the many differences. As many people have already said, this is about some pretty women camping in the wrong woods before getting abducted by some psychos who are following the orders of their wacked-out mother. The two brothers are amoral rapists/killers who know only what their demented mom and TV have taught them. The mother is possessive and domineering, making sure that she manipulates her already screwed-up kids into never leaving her side. They live in a run-down house in the woods, where the mother teaches them the ways of a "respectable life", which, in her twisted mind, is rape, torture, and murder. This is a deceptive movie because there is some important social commentary going on here, no matter how gory and sleazy the excesses that eclipse such commentaries are. TV serves as these people's window to the world. There is almost always a TV heard going in the background of an environment where a madwoman has been sheltering her children, who have been raised by her to her sick specifications. I was expecting to see plenty of reviews with people calling this a "TCM" rip-off/piece of trash, etc., etc., and my expectations were rightful ones. But what a sorry state things are in when people judge a movie by how little a budget could possibly be afforded by the filmmakers, the name of the production company on the box, or the very basic similarities it has to inferior and less thought-out moneymakers like "TCM". Even as derivative as movies like "House of 1,000 Corpses" are, that movie itself even had more brains than the original "TCM". I hate to burst a lot of people's bubbles, but Tobe Hooper's big, little movie was not the first movie (or even the first horror movie) about killer rednecks. Also, it has been said that "TCM 2" ripped off ideas from "Mother's Day"! "Mother's Day" has more going for it than any of the "Texas Chainsaw" movies I've seen. It may be trashy, but it's well-done trash. The acting is excellent, and it amazes me how many people will trash on good actors when the movie doesn't have a great reputation. I may sound pretty agitated, but that would be fitting because this kind of small-mindedness does agitate me. I understand that everyone should have their own tastes, but if you're going to trash on a movie's reputation, you might as well do it for the right reasons. I would give this no less than a 9 out of a scale of 1 to 10.

I like this movie. When I was a teenager and I first saw it I loved it. Of course then I was enthralled with gore fests. This movie is definitely gory but when I was 13 the satirical vibe was somewhat lost on me. You see Mother moves her two "mama's boys" to the woods. Where she can take what is good from the city and leave the rest behind. What is "good" are all the things you see on TV from Fonzie to breakfest cereals. The house they live in is a marvel of production values. Two thirds of the budget alone had to have gone into decorating the house. It certainly didn't go into the Special effects. Such as the shoddy moment of blood spattering before decapitation occurs. As early 80's slice and dice goes this far outshines the typical camper in peril scenerio. We are introduced to the three main (victims) characters and we even get meaningful flashbacks in their lives. This makes it a little harder to take when they are brutalized. All in all Mother's Day ain't Life is Beautiful but why would you be that aisle of the video store unless you wanted to see some inbred choke on Drano.

One of hundreds of grade-b exploitation shockers cranked out during this period; falls under the sub-category of rape and revenge films after Last House on the Left. This one has better acting and character development, but it's the addition of the crazy Mom character to the typical depraved psycho routine that makes this movie creepy and disturbing. The two brothers are scary slapstick rapists; "Can she spend the night with us tonight, Mom?" Next morning Mom asks "Where's your friend?" The boys tell her "She don't feel so good..." and they all laugh like it's Leave it to Beaver! ("they raped her to death..." my date said when we watched it in the theater back in the 80's.) This movie is also pretty funny, which really helps give you the chills. Probably only of interest to fans of this particular sub-genre. About the Troma release; I understand this movie was edited when it was first released, this version contains all the scenes. The pan and scan job is not very good, I'm surprised they did not release the film in a letter-box edition. Nothing in the movie however is as offensive as the opening promotional spots for Troma. I wanted to give them credit for attitude but I felt sorry for every one involved.

I introduced this Troma gem to my partner when we first started dating. She is a wonderful mom and an avid horror movie fan. We now watch it every year on Mother's Day. It's just the right mix of funny, gory and '80s cheese.