Mother’s Day is a 1980 American horror-thriller film, directed, co-written and produced by Charles Kaufman, brother of Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, who served as an associate producer for the film. It stars Nancy Hendrickson, Deborah Luce, Tiana Pierce, Holdem McGuire, Billy Ray McQuade and US TV star Rose Ross.
Plot teaser:
Abbey, Jackie, and Trina, who reunite every year to take a camping trip. Once while setting their vacation up in the woods, they find their trip turns into their worst nightmare when they are captured by a group of two partially insane punk/”hillbilly” hybrids: Ike and Addley. The punks lead a comfortable life, living along with their mentally abnormal mother in an occult hovel situated amidst the wood. All through the movie, their mother goads her sons into acts of rape, violence, and murder…
The British film rating board (BBFC) rejected the film in 1980, banning it from distribution. Nevertheless, the film was shown several times on TV on the Horror Channel between 2006–08, with no cuts and is finally released on Blu-ray and DVD uncut in 2014 by 88 Films.
In Australia, the film was originally passed uncut with an R 18+ in 1983 by the Australian censors but was later banned when reviewed in 1985. Fourteen minutes of the film were cut in Germany in order to keep the film from an X-rating.
A remake came in 2010,
Buy on DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Reviews:
“Beautifully skuzzy and brazenly bizarre, Charles Kaufman’s original version of Mother’s Day is a deft mix of pitch black comedy and fairly effective and disturbing horror. The performances are wonderfully over the top and the locations amazingly filthy, giving this one a look and feel all its own.” Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop!
“… Mother’s Day is not for everyone. It’s a demented and revolting exercise in sadism that makes you feel very uncomfortable, yet it’s done with such brains and heart that it stands tall above its many comparable knock-off’s. It’s tight, fast-paced, and very well done for its type. You become very concerned for the three heroines of the story, and for me this alone makes it a winner. These are characters with short but potent personal histories, and you CARE what happens to them.” DVD Drive-In
” … it’s similar to I Spit on Your Grave, but while that film was unflinching and sadistic in its depiction of rape and violence, Mother’s Day comes off as simply being cartoonish and weird. Yes, it’s unusual that Mother goads the boys into their strange shows for her entertainment, but the scenes are so weird that they become ludicrous. They are simply too odd to be disturbing.” DVD Sleuth
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