Mother’s Day



There’s a bad storm on the way with reports of a tornado in the area, but Beth and Daniel aren’t going to let that ruin their little shindig down in the basement of the house they just renovated. It should be fine though, because the basement has been storm-proofed, so all’s good. Or at least it would be fine if the storm were the only thing they had to worry about. Turns out three of the previous owners of the couple’s new house weren’t aware that it had been sold and waltzed right in…after having just robbed a bank. So, as if these guys weren’t annoyed enough, now not only are they wounded and on the run from the law, but now they’ve added to their blunder by accidentally breaking into a house and acquiring 9 hostages. What to do…what to do…Right! Call Mama and have her fix it. That’ll work!

Except when Mama does show up the party goers quickly discover that the seemingly demure, soft-spoken woman who offers reassurances of their safe release is just as demented as her violent children. As the little family spends the night finding new, inventive ways to torment all of them, suddenly Beth and Daniel are wishing they’d bought any other house than this one.



Mother’s Day is an American horror/action film from 2010, that I’m told is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name. And I say “told” because, yes, while it is listed in the end credits that the film is based on the Charles Kaufman film that I watched not too long ago, if they hadn’t mentioned that little tidbit anywhere I never would have guessed this was a remake of that movie. Because beyond a very generalized theme, giving two of the sons the same names as their counterparts in the original film, and using one extremely random reference that I never would have expected them to make, the two movies are absolutely nothing alike.



For starters, this is probably the better all-around film on just about every level. Technically speaking, it’s great. The sound is good, the imagery is crisp, the choreography is well done, and there’s even a couple of (not great, but) nicely framed shots to look at as well. Nothing spectacular or really memorable maybe, but everything is very solidly put together. There’s even a couple of particularly gruesome moments in there for the blood fans. Again, nothing too great as some of it is in the background, and certainly not enough to please the truly diehard gore-hounds, but perhaps just enough to make them give a slight nod of respect.


Oof. Damn dudes.

Its greatest asset though is undoubtedly the acting. This is one of those very “tense” types of films, and thankfully most everyone here was really on point. The three brothers (Patrick John Flueger, Warren Kole, and Matt O’Leary) are intense as hell and super creepy, all in different ways. Rebecca De Mornay as the mother does a great job of switching between demure and “I don’t give a shit”. And the rest of the cast fills their “I’m a victim, but I don’t want to be a victim” roles admirably, with some of them playing the heroes and some of them playing the assholes, because films like this can never, ever have friends actually be friends in these things, and every other person has to have some deep, dark secret or ulterior motives they’re working around (it’s kind of exhausting, really…). But that was mostly the guys. Some of the female hostages were better, but most of them also weren’t given much more to do than fretting, running and occasionally yelling. But hey, that’s not their fault and they did well with what they had to work with. Overall though, *thumbs up*.



Not that the film is perfect though, as I did take issue with a couple of things. The first being that, ya know, as nice as much of the film is, at 1 hour 52 minutes, the movie just feels too damn long. It’s just scene after scene of the various hostages almost getting out, just for them to be thwarted (often violently), and then the process starts all over again. And yeah, at first these scenes are tense, but after the 3rd or 4th (or 5th) escape attempt it starts to feel like you’re torturing the audience almost as much as the characters, and it starts to get a little annoying. Not that I’m saying the scenes that were there weren’t good. They were. In fact some of them might even be considered great. It’s just that if they’d shortened or even cut a couple of them, and thus the movie, by, say, around 20 minutes worth or so, than I wouldn’t have minded one teeny, tiny little bit.



The other thing was that there were a couple story issues that really annoyed me. For instance, at two points two separate women manage to get away. And of course they’re running and yelling for help like you’d expect, but these two instances constitute some of the WORST screaming I’ve ever heard in my life. Let’s just say that neither of these ladies would have ever come close to earning the title of Scream Queen in the 80s. Because they suck. It’s like they’re whisper screaming. So instead of yelling “HELP!” it comes out as “Help!”. Which is particularly atrocious at the beginning of the film, because Beth does that shit when the neighbors are right in front of her across the street. Like, they’re there. They’re….right….there! YELL, DAMN YOU! This is not a time to use your inside voice! What the hell are you doing?! It’s your life on the line, ladies. Fuckin’ focus! I’m a soft spoken introvert who doesn’t like talking too loud cause it hurts my damn throat, but if some psycho was chasing me in my front yard I guaran-fuckin-tee you my neighbors two blocks away would be hearing me shriek for help.


I swear to God, help was 50ft away when this happened. I was so pissed…

But it wasn’t just small (very annoying) things like inexplicable whisper screaming that bothered me. The one that really irked me – mostly because it was so integral to the plot – was: How the hell did these three “boys” not realize that their mother had lost the house? Now, don’t get me wrong, they do try to explain it away by saying one of the boys lost some all important burner phone. But that honestly doesn’t cut it for me. Because that means the movie is trying to claim that these three guys, who are clearly mama’s boys obsessed with pleasing their matriarch, hadn’t been in contact, in any way shape or form, to their mother in…*checks notes*….over two months? And the house foreclosure had to have been going on for longer than that, so that means she had to have known for a while, and yet this absolutely obsessive woman never mentioned it to her boys for safety reasons? And they seriously had no other covert means to contact one another? Like, I don’t know, email, maybe? Payphones were still around then too, so that would have been an option. Or just buying another fucking burner phone, cause there ain’t no way you could convince me that those three chumps didn’t have their beloved mother’s phone number memorized? Yeah…. I don’t think I’m buying this movie. Nor do I believe that a woman with such clear control issues would have let those three out of her sight for that long. Sorry. That all just feels like a really lame-ass excuse to get these people into the house to me. It just kinda boggles my mind that the filmmakers spent the time to plot out so many good escape scenes, but then just glossed over this.


Sir…Sir! Do you realize how stupid this plot point is?…Sir?

Overall though, Mother’s Day is a fun little outing. It feels a bit too long, and a couple of plot points really tested my bloody patience, but I think the acting and action make up for it. Honestly, my biggest complaint is that it’s so different from the original that I still don’t know why they just didn’t bother to make this it’s own thing though. Because beyond two names and a reference to Queenie, a crazy woman who both mother’s claim is supposed to live in the woods behind the house and terrorize bad kids (a reference which doesn’t even make sense to make in this movie, btw!), the two movies really have nothing in common. Not that it’s not always nice to be recognized, just saying it’s…. It’s a bit weird. But beyond that, this ain’t so bad. So if you’re looking for an easy home invasion horror to watch, this is a decent pick. Just know that it does have a lot of those “moral dilemma” scenes that are purposefully designed to make the audience uncomfortable. So if you don’t like those types of things you may want to skip this.

Mother’s Day is available on a variety of streaming services.

Mother’s Day is also available on DVD and Bluray, though oddly not for any North American regions.

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