The Movie Log: 04/06/2012: Mother's Day [2010]

By now you must have realized I have the largest pile of unwatched movie lying around in my room. Once again, with a nudge from a fellow blogger, Kalyn over at Gore Galore, Mother’s Day was dug out of the box, and put on the screen. Even as I was throwing it on, I had my doubt about the remake, but within minutes I was gripped, and strapped into a ride that wasn’t going to let me go.

Now that you’ve already clicked read more I’ll throw in a tidbit of random before I continue. Earlier tonight I lent a friend The Prestige. He claimed he hadn’t seen it, only remembering The Illusionist. He just came in while I was writing this, and The Prestige had rocked his world. He was barely able to describe its awesomeness, and placed it in his top 5. It is always such a pleasure to share these experiences with someone, and if he is reading this, that is how I feel about almost every movie I watch, at least some part of me loved it that much. Kinda why I write this blog. To share it with you. Now on to Mother’s Day, which if my own mother reads this, I’m sorry if I missed.

Now Mother’s Day had an interesting “bar” set for it. It is a remake of a TROMA original and well the TROMA name is synonymous with a very particular style, of over the top, extra violent and gory movies. Mother’s Day is not a remake of that style, while it may steal some story elements, it is holey its own movie, and a damn fine one at that. As Kalyn put it, it is easily could I possibly say the best home invasion movie put out in the last couple years, keep in mind I haven’t seen You’re Next yet. Either way Mother’s Day pacts a powerful punch, a hell of a lot of thrills, more than enough violence and terror, and some original thinking. That is one hell of a combo.

Oh look, Mother's here.

Mother’s Day starts out like many a home invasion movie. It is not some random psychopaths who just want to fuck with your head, a la The Strangers, (record for most movies mentioned in one post!), it is about a trio of brother who are on the run who show up at their mother’s house. Unfortunately, she has been foreclosed on and no longer lives in the house. Bad news for the new homeowners, who of course, may not be as happy as they seem. They did seem happy didn’t they, I feel like maybe they didn’t. Anyways, the first thing that surprises me is that it is not just the new homeowners in the house. They are having quite the party in the basement.

I honestly can’t think of to many home invasion movies in which nine people are taken captive. I mean, considering there is only three brothers, one seriously wounded and not helping anyone anytime soon, nine people is a lot to manage, regardless of how oblivious they are in the basement. Of course, they don’t stay oblivious for long, and soon we have quite the different party on our hands. Of course, it will be all good though, because the boys have called mother, and she quickly shows up to put things to rest. No disrespect to the rest of the cast, but Rebecca De Mornay makes this movie. She plays the mother phenomenally, and without her, the movie would have been knocked down a peg or two.

Without the internet handy I can’t look up the rest of the cast, although I vaguely recognize almost all of them. Not exactly Hollywood walk of fame stars, but they’ve been in some bigger budget things. Watching the credits, I couldn’t place their names either, but one of them is Iceman I remember now. The black guy (not racist, but he is the only African-American male) is also a pretty big actor. The red-head, who is sexy as hell, does a good job, along with the other three girlfriends/fiancés/etc. What was the heroines name again? Starts with a B and is on the tip of my tongue. Whatever it is she did a great job as well, although I didn’t recognize her. There is also Ike, as well as the sister who is from True Blood. Damn it, without the internet I am helpless with actor or character names. Either way, one name should get you to watch this. Rebecca De Mornay.


If there is one thing trying to find screenshots taught me, it was that this movie has no wide or deep shots. Everything is quick flashes and close-ups or else scrolling shots. Nothing ever appears completely on the screen at one time.

Back to the plot and why I enjoyed it so much. With nine people against five in a fight for their lives, we know they aren’t just going to take it. However it is the criminals response when they try to fight back that is so... shall we say great? Ike sums it up nicely “Human Nature”. Starting with the knife fight, and then following through to a number of powerful scenes, our villains show that anyone is willing to plunge a knife into their closest friends chest if it is a choice between them or you. Don’t hold your head up and think you would be above that. Only the strongest of us wouldn’t pick up that knife. Whatever you think you might do, that element of survival of the fittest, and everyone for themselves, in what usually becomes quite the team building exercise, (yes I just called being captive of a home invasion a team building exercise), was probably my favourite part.

There were a couple of twists as well. From the opening scene, I could deduce that Mother’s family wasn’t exactly hers, but when that scene came full circle at the end, it was quite good. I’ll admit I saw that coming a bit earlier, but still, good to have a few surprises.

Overall, Mother’s Day was actually a much stronger and better movie than I thought it was going in. It isn’t anything like the original TROMA movie, but it shouldn’t and by no means has to be. It is its own movie and it does it exceedingly well. As I was saying with the second bit, no matter the movie I watch, I always feel it was amazing just after I watched it. Hopefully like, Kalyn’s review did for me, my review will make you try this out and hopefully it will surprise you to. I also have to go check out the review of this over at Cinematic Shocks, and I’ll link both below. If you watch it and want to come argue with me about what you would have done in that knife fight, feel free to comment.