{"id":3983,"date":"2024-09-13T02:47:39","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T02:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3983"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:26:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:26:43","slug":"mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/13\/mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mother’s Day<\/strong> (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Film Distribution Company\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (language, extreme graphic violence and gore, torture, rape, nudity, sexual content, alcohol and drug use, general sleaziness)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Charles Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Kaufman and Warren Leight\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Phil Gallo and Clem Vicari Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Joseph Mangine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Nancy Hendrickson, Deborah Luce, Tiana Pierce, Holden McGuire, Billy Ray McQuade, Rose Ross.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Talk about warped horror movies,\u00a0Mother’s Day<\/strong>\u00a0belongs in either a museum or mental institution. This is one seriously f***ed up movie and I mean that in a good way. On the surface, it’s straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre School of Filmmaking. It\u2019s not just a gory horror movie; it’s also a sick comedy about a family that makes the\u00a0Mansons look like the Bradys. Right at the center of it all is the titular mother (Ross), a demented old lady with two depraved, mentally defective sons, Ike (McGuire) and Addley (McQuade). She takes great pride in her boys, especially when they kidnap and torture victims for her personal amusement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We first meet Mother at an EST-like encounter group seminar where she offers a hippie couple a ride to the bus stop. They appear to be planning on hurting her, but the joke’s on them. When car trouble causes her to pull over, one of her sons decapitates the man while the other savagely beats the woman. Then Mom gets into the act, finishing off the girl with a garrote. Well, you know what they say about a family that plays together.<\/p>\n

Next, we meet the three victims… er, main characters- Trina (Pierce), Jackie (Luce) and Abbey (Hendrickson). Although life has taken them in different directions since college, they still get together every year for a reunion weekend trip. This year, Jackie has arranged a camping trip deep in the woods far from civilization and civilized people. As is typical in movies like this, they completely ignore the sign that reads \u201cProceed at your own risk\u201d. It starts out idyllically enough with the girls fishing, hiking and reminiscing while smoking pot. That\u2019s when their nightmare begins.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Predictably, Ike and Addley show up and drag the screaming girls (in their sleeping bags) back to the filthy, broken-down shack they share with their mother. They proceed to entertain the disturbed old lady forcing the girls to take part in rape scenarios of her choosing. After a while, the girls manage to escape, but one of them succumbs to her injuries. Her two friends turn the table on their attackers and return to the shack to take bloody vengeance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is when\u00a0Mother’s Day<\/strong>\u00a0brings on the gore. The girls dispatch their tormentors in creative ways. We get to bear witness to it all. We see a hatchet delivered to the groin, a can of drain cleaner poured down a throat, a TV smashed over the head and a carving with an electric knife. WOW! What a bloody mess! Then they get to Mom. It makes perfect sense for Abbey to take the wheel for this one. Back home in Chicago, she lives with her demanding mother, a harpy always screaming at her from her bedroom, repeatedly reminding her \u201cI\u2019m a sick woman!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Mother is extremely afraid of her dead (?) sister Queenie. Supposedly, she lives in the woods and wants to kill her first chance she gets. Mom claims she broke her neck when she was a baby. Okay, this explains the neck brace she\u2019s always wearing. The problem is NOBODY other than her has ever seen Queenie. What are the chances she\u2019ll make a surprise appearance in the final scene?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remember seeing the commercial for Mother’s Day<\/strong>\u00a0when I was 12. It was the first time I ever saw a televised advertisement for a movie carrying a \u201cNo One Under 17 Admitted\u201d label instead of an MPAA rating. The newspaper ad showed Mom holding a gift box with a severed head in it. Of course, I was intrigued. I would have given anything to see it. That didn\u2019t happen until I got my first VCR in December \u201984. It was one of the first movies I rented.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Charles Kaufman, Mother’s Day<\/strong>\u00a0is a sleazy Hixploitation movie that continues the grand tradition of depicting hillbillies as stupid, sex-crazed, possibly inbred, homicidal maniacs. Ike and Addley are like a sadistic, backwoods version of Lenny and Squiggy. When they\u2019re not terrorizing young women, they trade insults over their different musical tastes. A typical exchange consists of \u201cPunk sucks.\u201d (Addley) and \u201cDisco\u2019s stupid.\u201d (Ike). Meals involve Ike eating cereal from a metal bucket while Addley shoots a can of pressurized cheese spread into his mouth. Then there\u2019s their home d\u00e9cor. It looks like it was inspired by Better Homes and Junkyards. Graffiti covers the walls, the living room is filled with old TVs and the trash-filled kitchen is a health hazard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While I classify\u00a0Mother’s Day<\/strong>\u00a0as a horror movie, it might be more accurate to call it a splatter comedy. The first victim, the guy who gets headed, is obviously a dummy. Nobody sits that still when a machete is coming at their neck. The bad acting and inane dialogue enhance the sleazy, darkly funny tone. McGuire and McQuade are especially hysterical. Ross is great as the looniest mother this side of Mommie Dearest. The three actresses playing the victims are attractive, but their characters are so dumb. Take Trina. She works in the film industry in California. She must watch a lot of movies. Has she never seen a horror movie? She should know it\u2019s NEVER a good idea for three young women to go camping in the woods alone. It\u2019s common freaking sense! On the other hand, if we didn\u2019t have idiots, we wouldn\u2019t have slasher movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although the best of it doesn\u2019t come until the end, Mother’s Day <\/strong>has pretty good<\/strong> splatter effects. They mix very well with the vile, flagitious behavior exhibited by the sick, perverted characters. Some will, no doubt, find it offensive. That it is! It\u2019s also entertaining in a Grand Guignol kind of way. It\u2019s a bloody good time if you have a strong stomach. It\u2019s definitely superior to the tamer, more conventional remake starring Rebecca DeMornay. Don\u2019t even bother with it. Mother’s Day <\/strong>can be imitated, but never duplicated. It\u2019s a strange, surreal, original experience.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mother’s Day (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Film Distribution Company\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (language, extreme graphic violence and gore, torture, rape, nudity, sexual content, alcohol and drug use, general sleaziness)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Charles Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Kaufman and Warren Leight\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Phil Gallo and Clem Vicari Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Joseph Mangine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Mothers-Day-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5098,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions\/5098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}