Mother’s Day (2010)

Trailer: 

Check out my review of the original Mother’s Day here!

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Follows the lives of different mothers on Mother’s Day. Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is happily divorced until she learns that her ex-husband eloped with a much younger woman. Now she must learn to deal with big changes in her life as her two boys now have a stepmom. Sisters Jesse (Kate Hudson) and Gabi (Sarah Chalke) get an unexpected surprise from their mother, who is not happy to find out Gabi is a lesbian and Jesse is married to a man of color. Miranda (Julia Roberts) has no kids and is focusing on her career. Shit. I watched the wrong Mother’s Day. Easy mistake since the Garry Marshall movie is just as frightening.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• This better be good because it forced me to rewatch the Troma original the other night!
• At least this version takes place at or around Mothers Day!
• Damn you slow moving elevator doors!
• So far I’m kinda lost. The beginning scene had a baby-napping at a hospital. Then we see a very distraught Jaime King and her husband asking if she’s OK. Then a cut to some guys in a speeding car with one of the dudes bleeding out of his belly. Where is this movie going?!
• Shawn Ashmore! Iceman from the X-Men movies. Which is weird because Aaron Stanford was in The Hills Have Eyes and he played Iceman’s main rival, Pyro in the X-Men movies.
• Why is this lady party guest dancing provocatively in front of her friends like this? And why can’t my female friends do this more often at parties?
• So the dudes in the car with the injured dude broke into Jaime King’s house while they were partying in the basement because it used to be their house? Apparently Jaime King and her husband only moved in 2 months ago adding to the confusion somehow.
• Are only of the party guests downstairs going to come up to see what all the commotion is about?
• The bad guys will start killing everyone if Shawn Ashmore, who’s a doctor, can’t patch up the one kid’s (Johnny) bullet wound in his gut. Do they expect him to use tweezers and a sewing kit to help him?
• Now it’s a party!
• Yeah why is disco playing at this party? Also of note, this party is in the middle of the day.
• One of the bad guys just ripped off one of the guests’ toupee! Next he’s going to give him a swirly and a purple-nurple.

• “Don’t Dr. Phil me!” Not sure if he means that in he’s a quack or someone qualified to help people.
• Rebecca De Mornay is Mother. I haven’t seen her in a long time. She still looked great in 2010.
• Mother and her kids aren’t that bad once you get to know them.
• The original had Mother and her boys be like a torture/rape clan living in the woods. This new Mother and her kids are traveling criminals and bank robbers caught up in this home invasion scenario.
• Addley, the punk who ripped off the toupee earlier, is the most sadistic of the group and he just pulverized and pummeled Jaime King’s husband’s knuckles with a pool cueball because they think he’s lying that Mother’s money didn’t get delivered to the house.
• Mother is tough but fair. Even she has standards and lines that she won’t cross.
• Mother must be disappointed in her eldest, Ike, because she won’t let him kiss her.
• Mother also has a daughter, Lydia, who I believe played Karen Page in Netflix’ Daredevil series.
• See Mother ain’t that bad. She’s cleaning up the bloodstains on the wall after Addley shot one of the guests in the head.
• The redneck kids in the 1980 original were more colorful and menacing at this point. This movie is going for a more believable style to this criminal family.
• I shouldn’t even compare the two Mother’s Days because this one is a very loose remake. 
• Ike and Beth (Jaime King) have been tasked to taking the dead girl that Addley shot in the head to a dumpster to drop off. Not sure why they can’t stash the body in the same house so’s not to rouse suspicion. 
• So this is a home invasion thriller with a twist! Mother is super nice and nurturing even to the victims. She’s now dolling out dessert of cake and ice cream!
• I’m not sure how much money Mother wants/needs but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more than what can be withdrawn from a bank ATM.

• Ike thinks he’s Jigsaw from the Saw movies and is making these two bimbo friends fight each other by giving them one hunting knife so one could live otherwise he’s going to shoot them both.
• One of them actually kills her friend to live! But then she tries to flee and Ike shoots her in the back anyway.
• I know there’s not too much they could do with the whole torture/rape thriller but this is very similar to Last House on the Left.
• Not sure why Shawn Ashmore is giving free medical advice to Lydia. Is it just the doctor in him or is he trying to turn Lydia against her own mother?
• “There’s a cop outside!” Yeah probably because you shot someone with the door open genius.
• Is the tornado warning they keep alluding to going to have any bearing to the plot later on? I sure hope so.
• Not sure why they made Beth’s husband talk to the cop to try to make him go away when he has a broken bandaged hand as well as a cut on his temple. 
• The guests downstairs can see the cop through the basement window but never bothered to try to get his attention? So dumb.
• Even if Beth and her husband did have Mother’s money do they really think that they would stash it somewhere in the house? Especially in his home office.
• Lydia apparently still believes in a boogeyman story her mother told her. Lydia is way past 24 years old.
• Wait, Addley is serious about recruiting a volunteer woman to fuck his younger brother Johnny, the one who’s slowly dying from the gunshot?
• And for some reason, Mother rejects the one Addley chose.
• Mother chose a new girl but she blurts out that the toupee guy works for a bank, basically throwing him under the bus. Great group of friends we have here.

• YES! Addley puts on a Roger Miller song while toupee guy and the African-American friend fight. Another forced fight to see who—you know what I’m not sure why they are forcing them to fight but they are tussling to the death.
• Beth is trying to confuse Ike with the safe combination for their friend’s laundromat to get more money while she bides time while trying to get a pistol from the desk drawer.
• Of course Beth fucks up when Ike grabs the gun from her.
• She did manage to get Ike’s cell phone though. Now all she has to do is call 911 or something before Ike finds her.
• Is Mother pimping out this girl for her son because he’s gonna potentially die and he should get laid before he dies or is this just a random occurrence?
• “Stop your whining and do what you know how to do.” Jeez. I say this all the time to my wife but when you hear it from someone else it does sound kinda creepy.
• Far be it for me to try to understand the mental state of a rapist but if I was bleeding to death from a bullet wound in the gut being horny wouldn’t be the mood I would be in. Maybe.
• And there’s no way I would be in the mood when my mother is assisting the girl to touch my junk.
• Finally someone has some balls in this house.
• Well he may have had some balls but now he has no head.
• Does this scene really need the shaky cam?

• Well at least the tornado is playing some sort of part. Storm’s getting worse and Ike and Beth were just stopped by a cop questioning why people are out in this storm and if they need help. Ike shoots him and tries to force Beth to run him over but she swerves out of the way at the last moment and the car spins off the road and crashes.
• I’m not even sure why Ike didn’t kill Beth yet. She already tried to shoot him and now caused a crash almost killing him again. Not sure why he doesn’t waste her already.
• Mother and Addley are torturing the African-American fella by pouring boiling water in his ears. Brutal.
• That was some fine police work there Lou. He gets shot not once by Ike, but twice because he’s an idiot.
• I seem to recall Mother giving Beth and Ike until 8:00 to get that money before they start killing everyone. I’m not exactly sure what time it is now but it’s been nighttime for a while now.
• Again, what does this home invasion story have to do with Mother’s Day? It’s roughly around the holiday but that’s not why this party is happening.
• A while back, the girl who got shot in the head and was discarded in the dumpster was found and rushed to the hospital. Now we’re seeing that she’s alive while the doctors operate on her. She also is trying to communicate and tell them about the home invasion.
• Beth’s husband, Daniel, is a fucking liar. They did get Mother’s money in the mail and he hid them behind a picture hanging on the wall. For some reason. What was his plan for that money? 
• One of the friend’s got free from being tied up with Saran Wrap (I guess they were out of zip-ties or rags of clothing) and they manage to take down Addley. The girl who was forced to touch the kid’s junk stabs Addley in the dick with a small knife or something.
• Earlier when the cop stopped Ike and Beth, she told the cop that they were about half a mile from her house. That was 20 minutes ago.
• Shawn Ashmore is trying to psych Mother out by saying her kids aren’t really hers and that she is a lousy mother. It kinda sorta worked. Mother is a little upset.
• There’s still 20 minutes left?! C’mon, let’s wrap this shit up.
• For some reason, Johnny shot Shawn Ashmore in the back. And for some reason, Lydia is upset about this.

• Come to think of it, what is Lydia’s role here? She hasn’t really done anything except look distraught this whole time. It seems like the film is trying to set her up as the reluctant family member who might do the right thing and turn on her own mother but it’s not really fleshed out so far.
• Mother is now making Beth prove that she’s pregnant by watching her piss on a home pregnancy test. I’m not sure the audience this film is intended for. 
• Haha. Nice. Beth just whacked Mother over the head with the ceramic toilet tank lid! She’ll be back soon I’m sure but that would/should kill someone or at the very least give one brain damage.
• I’m all for Mother coming back in the final moment to attack Beth and co. but she better be killed somehow by the tornado. Either caught in a gust of wind and taken miles away or some random debris flying around lands on her. 
• Not sure why Daniel had a nail gun in the garage but it sure came in a little handy slowing Ike down some.
• Beth just poured some chemical cleaner down Ike’s throat. The film didn’t bother showing us what cleaner it was but I’m sure he would’ve died from it if the TV the other girl dropped on his head didn’t.
• Mother is quite the fighter.
• Out of all the “weapons” one could find in the kitchen, Beth uses the Boos cutting block to beat Mother with. 
• Flash-forward to Beth giving birth to her baby and her baby has been kidnapped from the hospital right under Beth’s nose! Mother got her revenge!
• Produced by Brett Ratner? Figures.

Final Thoughts: Standard run-of-the-mill modern thriller. I mentioned that I don’t know who the audience for this movie was for (it certainly wasn’t teens) so I’m not sure why this was remade. It’s not like the original was that well-known and ripe for a re-telling. And also like I mentioned this is just a remake in name only as the two stories are very different so, again, I’m sure whoevers idea was to remake this must’ve been a big fan of the Troma cult classic. On its own merits, this wasn’t a terrible thriller but it’s easily forgettable and just another example of the torture porn fad that was sweeping the nation in the mid-aughts. If you enjoy home invasions, then this will whet your appetite. I wish it was more clever; I kept waiting for the tornado to play a part in the ending but that fell flat. Too bad as killing someone, like Mother, in the final showdown with a pole impaling her from the high winds would’ve been more interesting.

Score: 5 Kidnapped Babies (out of 10)

Which was Better?: After watching the Troma version again recently, I had more fun with it than I previously did and as sick and depraved it is, I much rather watch that than this pale imitation again.