Creative Drano Use

Troma Films, never ones to miss capitalizing on a trend, made their entry into the "holiday-themed slasher" genre (you know . . . Friday The 13th, Prom Night, New Year's Evil, My Bloody Valentine, etc.) with Mother's Day. And, believe it or not, Mother's Day stands head and shoulders above a majority of the teen slice-n-dice flicks of the time. By turns funny, depressing, disgusting, and grueling, Mother's Day is anything but forgettable and rote . . .

It is the story of three mischievous college room-mates at their ten-year reunion; which happens to be a camping trip in the wilds of New Jersey. Of course, these particular woods are inhabited by a lunatic backwoods family of three: Mother and her sons Ike and Addley. Soon, our intrepid college pranksters are captured by the brothers grim and are forced to submit to brutal torture and rape . . . just like the boys have seen on TV. Eventually the girls escape their house of horrors (but not before one of them suffers incorrectible bodily harm) and come back to seek out revenge.

I know, I know . . . Sounds like every dang "camper terror" movie ever made, right? And it would appear so on the surface . . . but there's something more twisted about Mother's Day, a perverse depth that lends it a gravity that other films of its ilk never obtained. Brothers Ike - a lanky, giant buffoon - and Addley - a short, weasel-faced Keanu Reeves-looking freak - inhabit a world of sugar-coated breakfast cereal, glazed doughnuts, and constant bombardment of television commercials. They consider themselves "citified" because of their pop-culture awareness. One of the film's best - and most revealing - scenes is when they argue over the esthetic value of Disco vs. Punk Rock. Quentin Tarentino would later appropriate this "characterization through non-conversation" trick as one of his signature traits. As sick and violent as the murderers are in Mother's Day, they exhibit genuine personality traits. Something that no other slash film had done at that time.

Despite the qualities that separate Mother's Day from the rest of the early 80s slasher flicks, critics used it as an example of how terrible and misogynistic these films were. True, Mother's Day does become almost unwatchable in its extremeness at times. But the female protagonists also triumph in one of the most memorable retribution scenes in the annals of film history.

Ask anybody who has seen a number of horror flicks which deaths they remember clearly and most of them will cringe as they recall the hatchet-in-the-crotch or (more often) the Drano-gargling demise of brother Ike. Gruesome, but wholly effective and synapse- directing.

Personally, I'm a big fan of films from the "golden age of gore" - I was too young to actually see the movies, but old enough to be transfixed by the TV commercials (the Ike and Addley in me coming out) - and Mother's Day is a must-see for anyone who is writing a term paper on the political and socio-economic impact of these early 80s staples. A unique and very Troma film that skirts convention while heeding it at the same time.

My one minor complaint with Mother's Day is the requisite sequel- open ending (involving the "pure evil" sibling of Mother that has been living in the woods for years). Wholly unnecessary and not as shocking as the rest of the film, it seems a bit contrived. But, as they say in Scream (which stole the "killing the killer by smashing a TV over his head" plot point from Mother's Day), "You gotta' leave room for the sequel, baby!"

- Punky McScrubb