By Geno McGahee
There are a lot of films that surround a special day. We have HALLOWEEN, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, CHRISTMAS EVIL, BLACK CHRISTMAS and NEW YEARS EVIL. So, I expected MOTHER’S DAY MASSACARE, an indie horror film, to be about that holiday, but it wasn’t. It did concern motherhood, but it’s not your typical holiday-based horror movie.
This film is written and directed by Jeff Roenning, but I think that there were a lot of hands in this mess of a flick. What’s sad is that this film had some very good things going for it, but the different storylines, quick direction changes, and inconsistent characters made it a difficult film to love. MOTHER’S DAY MASSACRE could have been a contender but it became something that the viewer had to sort out.
Jim (Adam Scarimbolo) is a troubled young man. His mother was killed and his father is a complete prick. He does have a hot girlfriend though. Doreen (Emily Grace) is quite taken with Jim and they are ready to take the next step. They are going to bathe together. I think that is in between groping and sex. It makes sense. Unfortunately, the overbearing father, Tex (Greg Travis) comes home and immediately becomes inappropriate with Doreen, grabbing her arm and then slapping her ass as she runs away. He then grabs his son’s junk, noting that he doesn’t know what to do with it. Tex is not going to win father of the year any time soon, but I have to say that Greg Travis is a reason to watch this film. He was incredibly amusing.
We then find out that Tex is involved with a hypnotist, Sid (Albert Insinnia), and they are having sex with the patients when they are out cold. This storyline became very interesting. Jim finds a tape in his dad’s home and watches it with his neighbor, Jen (Heidi Kristoffer), and it implies that something perverse is going on. I began to get flashbacks to VIDEO VIOLENCE and began to have very high hopes for this one, but it quickly changed directions and very little was mentioned of this storyline as we traveled into TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE territory.
The woman that killed Jim’s mother, Dolores (Mel Gorham), has two sons, based obviously on Leatherface and his brother. Dolores is a cartoon character in this film with a terrible accent. This is when the film really loses it. At points, they seem to be putting in the effort to make a film and at other times, they are just dicking around and not taking it seriously. It is very obvious that the production lacked structure and guidance. It’s the only way to explain the different paths this film took.
We take a trip and Jim and his friends come across the Dolores family. This is where this film gets irritating. Up to this point, Doreen was a great character and looked beyond Jim’s problems to accept him. Now, she was a queen bitch and didn’t care if anyone lived or died as long as she was safe. She and Jim break up and that brings in the other love interest, Jen, into his life. To justify the match, the filmmakers insisted on making Doreen a villain. It didn’t work.
MOTHER’S DAY MASSACRE had too many ideas and was totally inconsistent. All the elements were here to make a good film and it just seems that they weren’t serious enough. Had this been a focused effort and had the nonsense and cartoon character acting been removed, we would have had a standout indie title, but instead we get a muddled mess. I want to give great credit to Greg Travis. His performance was very amusing but he kept it in the realms of real person…not a cartoon. He was a hilarious jerk and when he jumped on his son at the end and screamed “don’t hurt my boy,” I was very amused.
Rating: 4/10 – missed opportunity.