Rebecca De Mornay as Mother
Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2010 Mother’s Day remake is a mixed bag. It has some really nice things going for it, but the changes made to make the film more “modern” only serve to make less and less sense as the film goes on. It’s one of those horror films that will leave you scratching your head wondering how the heck the characters involved let it go as far as they did.
But first – some history. The original 1980′s Mother’s Day is one of the era’s notorious films – not quite one of the “Video Nasties” – it was banned or censored in many countries for its depictions of sadistic violence and rape. Roger Ebert famously reviewed the exploitation flick by wondering why anyone would want to watch it. In that film, Momma and her two punk-a-billy sons (Ike and Addley) kidnap, rape, and torture three college girls out on a camping trip. You see, Momma and her sons live far out in the woods – away from civilization and most civilized folk. Like any other hillbilly horror – these idiots get a thrill out of terrorizing people who think they’re better than them. The film’s graphic (and lurid) depictions of violence were fairly extreme – leading to its cult following, even though the film itself is less-than-quality.
Addley roughs up one of many hostages
Enter DLB, producer Brett Ratner (…ugh…) and this 2010 remake. Apparently to capitalize on the current down-market, the events of this film take place in a nice, modern 2-story home located in a typical suburban neighborhood. This go-round, Momma and her family (3 sons and a daughter) are thieving, sadistic, everyone-else-hating, murdering…. suburbanites (???). The film starts with the three sons going “home”… only to discover that Momma lost their home in foreclosure, but neglected to tell anyone about it. A realtor and her husband snatched the home up in foreclosure months ago, and they happen to be in the home (with several other couples) when Ike and Addley show up with severely-injured young Johnny. As things go in these kinds of movies, once the two groups discover one another – the shit hits the fan. Then Momma (Rebecca De Mornay) arrives in her Wacko Winnebago and things get much, much worse.
Jamie King comes face to face with Mother
What I did like about Mother’s Day was the execution – Darren Lynn Bousman knows how to move a camera around a scene, especially in extreme circumstances. The film is quite adept at showing what is going on and keeping the action relatively understandable – even with a cast of about 15 different characters running around in various states of hysteria. We understand the motivations of each character (more so as the film unfolds and secrets are uncovered) as well. The violence and gore are also exceptional here – nasty wounds, vicious attacks, uncomfortable sexual scenarios. Everything to make a gore-hound and exploitation fan happy.
The problem is… there is TOO much going on. The filmmakers weren’t happy leaving well enough alone with the small number of people (victims?) in the film. There are too many hostages at the onset to make any sense – 4 adult men, 4 adult women against 2 armed intruders and one mortally injured teen. Eight unbound hostages to 2 defensible intruders (the injured kid couldn’t do a thing)??? Sure, someone may get shot if they charged the twisted assholes – but there’s no way they could stop all 8 people before being overtaken themselves! Removing the action from the solitary woods into a typical modern suburb was also a pointless change – it removes any semblance of realism from Mother’s Day. There’s simply no way that Momma and her clan would have fit in the suburbs – despite a few minor changes to make them appear less “punk” than the original film. And last but not least – the addition of several layers of lies, cheats, and deceit among the victim-couples was just insulting. Sure, these kinds of things are normal in modern couples – but each couple has some sort of drama going on that the film cheaply uses to essentially say, “Who’s Worse – Momma and her family, or these Phonies?”
Deborah Ann Woll thinks of defying Mother
Which is pretty shitty question to ask while Momma is busy setting one home-wrecking woman alive to coerce another into talking. Sure, cheating with your friend’s husband is a shitty thing to do… but setting a living being on fire for adultery kinda puts Momma on the “Decidely Not A Good Person” list. Essentially they’re trying to add some sort of heavy-handed moral underpinning to the shenanigans – which only irks the viewer. This brings me to Momma herself. While I’m normally a fan of De Mornay’s performances – I found her flat, dull, and uninteresting in the role of Momma. She’s essentially an older and calmer version of the same character she played in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle – she steals babies from hospitals, raises them to be murderous cretins for the good of the Family, and pretends to be the comforting to hostages until they give her an excuse to be cruel. Any excuse.
To make matters worse – all of Momma’s children, with the exception of still-bumpkin-y Addley, seem to have some moral dilemmas about following Momma’s orders as they get more and more heinous. In particular, the new daughter character of Lydia – played by True Blood‘s fantastic Deborah Ann Woll. She stands up to Momma – questioning her when she’s going against the way they were raised (“You said it’s always the woman’s choice!!!!”). Yet this never materializes into anything except one more plot hole left dangling in the wind.
Mother’s Day isn’t all bad – but the lack of reason to the storytelling coupled with far too many plot missteps left me with a heavy case of the BLAHs. In an attempt to make the film more modern, they lost what made the story such a shocker of the time. And in the attempt to add more victims to the death count, the muddled mess of morality began to corrupt the film with the foul odor of exploitation. Note to filmmakers: If you’re going to make an exploitation flick – embrace it. Don’t try to make it more meaningful by making your victims out to be bad guys too.
Mother’s Day is available for purchase in most stores, on many cable provider’s On-Demand networks, and is also found on Amazon Instant Video and PlayStation Store.
