Mother's Day

(1980) **1/2

I was 11 years old when I first saw the cover to this movie in a video store in my hometown and it hooked me immediately. It was the creepy tall dude with the rotten tooth. I thought, "fuck, look at that guy!" He reminded me of Fu from the movie the Golden Child. Shambling and goofy, but so goofy it crossed into the realm of terminally weird, so I could instantly buy a guy looking like that as having some evil to him.

Unfortunately, "evil" isn't the first word that comes to mind when I finally saw the big guy from Mother's Day in action. "Beef-witted" would be a better way of putting it.

He and his somewhat more spry, but equally out of orbit, brother kidnap three college ex-roomies who are on a reunion trip in the woods. The brothers bring the women back to their house, where their iron-fisted mom runs them through drills that are designed to condition them for the old ultra-violence. Drills include bashing melons with a jackhammer in one case, and using the same hammer to smash in windows around the house in another. Apparently they've been working hard at this drill because most of the windows in the house have been smashed in. Apparently it's all or nothing time at the house, where even proper heating is being cashed in in the name of practice.

The girls execute a pretty slapstick escape from the house, one that involves someone getting hit with a tree-branch and having a big, big fall. The girls' talent for pranks, illustrated through college flashbacks, figures largely in their flight.

I'd also like to point out that this movie has one of the best screams I've heard all year. It's on par with any of the great screams in the Descent (Even more impressive, kinda, because that was the Descent and it was awesome, and this movie is Mother's Day and it sucks.) It's not a terrified yelp, uttered by a shivering victim. It's more of a howl, and it's pretty furious.

PS -- the last confirmed kill in the movie: Death by Tits?