What I'm Watching: Mother's Day 2012
Or is it 2010? I'm really not sure, what with how long this movie got delayed. I'll go with 2012, since the DVD finally found it's way into my hands.
ANYways.
I was obviously going to review this a few days ago, but since our newest in depth review went up that same day, I figured I would spare people.
Now, before diving in, I should note that I have never ever seen the original, but I know a little bit about it, and considering it was from Troma, I can kinda guess about what sort of quality it was.
That leaves me coming to this movie pretty fresh, and giving it a view on its own merits. And on that front, you know what? It is reeeally good.
The story centers around a group of friends riding out a tornado in the rather lavish basement game room that the owners of the house have made. There are worse ways to wait for the tornados to pass, right? Anyways, things go terribly wrong when three criminals, bank robbers from a botched job, come barging into the house...because it used to be theirs, and they missed the memo that the house was sold after a foreclosure. Oops.
So, the Sohapi family, and their friends, end up the victims of a home invasion by the very insane Koffin family. Hilarity ensues.
The rest of the movie is about the victims trying to escape, while the Koffins try and find out what happened to their house, their money, and how the heck they are going to walk away from this.
The acting in this is great. Top notch performances from Rebecca DeMornay as Mother Koffin, Jaime King as Beth Sohapi, recovering from the loss of her son, and Frank Grillo as her husband. All three are great, show good range, and really make you feel for them. All the Koffin kids are great too, and you find yourself almost sympathising for them at times. But then they go and stab people, so that sympathy is short lived.
There are some good twists to the story, some obvious and some not, but all handled well and make sense within the narrative. You find yourself rooting for the victims to escape, and the few moments when they do get the upper hand are amazing, and I was almost cheering when they were taking out their captors, it was that satisfying.
This is...NOT a happy movie. Holy crap it gets pretty dark. Not Saw levels of torture porn dark, but there are some cringe-worthy moments that show just how wicked and twisted Mother Koffin is, and how much her family means to her. So yeah, be ready for a ride into the darker places.
Everything comes together well at the end, and the final twist of the knife is good, even though it stays with the dark tone of the movie. Like I said, it is not a happy movie, and it does not have a happy ending.
Another movie I highly recommend from Darren Bousman, and this is probably the better movie. I prefer the story of 11-11-11, but this is simply better made, and closer to what Darren wanted.
J
