Mother's Day

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Horrorphile - May 2009

Mother's Day

May 8th 2009 00:49

There are cult classics, there are cult movies, there are cult curiosities, and then there is cult trash, and there is cult rubbish. Mother’s Day (1980) is in the latter bin, I don’t care what any guttersnipe has to say in its defence; it’s a piece of crap.

It’s taken me years to finally watch this Z-grade shlock-horror-probe flick. Essentially it fits into the rape-revenge sub-genre, and although it’s nowhere near as offensive as I Spit on Your Grave (1978), it’s more crass and vulgar. Does that make it more disturbing? What does disturb me is where how on earth this turd made any money? According to director and co-writer Charles Kaufman (not to be confused with the auteur screenwriter-cum-director par excellence Charlie Kaufman), Mother’s Day cost $US150,000 and is still in the top 100 most successful independent motion pictures!

Rose Ross as Mother

Supposedly the critics who’ve praised this movie see it as a cultural satire. I’ll agree that it’s a black comedy, although I barely chortled once during its mercifully short running time, but I wasn’t aware of any social significance or clever metaphors. It was just a low-rent exploitation horror featuring a couple of retards and their insane mother terrorising three ditzy city women who foolishly strayed too far into the wilderness that warned them to enter at their own risk.

Holden McGuire as Ike

Abbey (Nancy Hendrickson), Jackie (Deborah Luce) and Trina (Tiana Pierce) are on a ten-year high school reunion camping weekend. Jackie leads the other two through the woods with paper bags over their heads so the destination is a mystery. Unbeknownst to them they set up camp close to the home of Mother (Rose Ross) and her grown sons Ike (Holden McGuire) and Addley (Billy Ray McQuade), who like to impress mom by bringing home the bacon.

Billy Ray McQuade as Addley

The girls soon find themselves trussed up in their sleeping bags, kidnapped, and tortured. Jackie is raped by Addley, with Mother looking on in glee. Later Abbey and Trina escape their binds and set about acting on a little bloody ball-busting, plastic tit-asphyxiating revenge.

Tiana Pierce as Trina

If John Waters had decided to make an actual horror movie - although you can argue that most of his movies are horrors - it might’ve ended up like Mother’s Day. A caption at the start states the city as Chicago, but later a doorman refers to it NYC, and the accents of the women are unmistakably Noo Yoyk. Waters would’ve set his in Baltimore and Mother would’ve been played by Divine. It’s curious that the actors playing Mother, Addley and Ike all used stage names. Methinks they wanted to make sure they could distance themselves if need be. The other curious fact is Friday the 13th (1980) was being shot at the same time on the other side of the lake!

Nancy Hendrickson as Abbey

I’ll be straight up; I’m not a fan of Troma movies, although they often sport great titles like Surf Nazis Must Die and Class of Nuke ‘Em High. Troma movies are very much an acquired taste (if you like eating shit that is). I’ll admit though, I have a soft, squishy spot for Street Trash (1987), and at some point in the future I’ll review that movie, which many of the Troma fans consider the best, along with The Toxic Avenger (1986) which, despite the inventive special effects, is hugely over-rated. Lloyd Kaufman, the head honcho at Troma, loves his bottom-of-the-barrel “entertainment”. But why are all his DVDs so shoddily put together? Mother’s Day is presented in standard ratio suggesting it was shot in 16mm?!

Addley gets an axe where it counts

The movie was slapped with an X rating in the States, and banned in Australia (however VHS copies somewhere managed to get distributed). The sexual violence aside, obviously the bone of contention, although an ugly movie like The Last House on the Left (1972) stirs the pot with a bigger bone, there’s not much in Mother’s Day to warrant keeping this off the shelves, except good taste. The gore effects are dreadfully inadequate; the blood looks like paint fer Chrissake!

Feral sister Queenie, minus an ear, which happens to look like a puckered butthole!

I had hoped my blog gift for Mother’s Day was going to be a thumbs up review, but after all these years all I get is a dirty garbage gobbler. I remember the VHS when I was an impressionable teen and later read about its cult following in the pages of Fangoria, but I never hired the movie for some reason or another, and then it became unavailable. I like the poster art, but the movie doesn’t even rate as curious deep trash in my books, no apologies Troma fans, or the legion of deluded critics.

Here's the trailer, which works surprisingly well in that sleazy grindhouse style:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

May 8th 2009 03:50

Ouch

May I never make a bad horror film like this.

However it does look sucky.

Comment by Bryn

May 8th 2009 05:24

Horrorphile

Damo, may I second that motion.

Comment by Damo

May 8th 2009 06:00

Bryn
I would love to say more but unfortunately my words may be used against me.

What the hell?

This looks bad, very bad. I remember the poster from the old Valhalla but I never heard of one person bothering to see this.

Banned in Australia huh? Well, that is perhaps one of their good decisions. Why should we take American crap when Australian crap needs support. We need another Barry McKenzie to blight the world as a revenge for what the rest of the world send us.

That goes for Stork too.
And The Aunty Jack Show.

There I ranted. I feel better.

[ Previous - THE DESCENT: PART 2 ...??!! ]

[ Next - Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck) ]

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