MOTHER'S DAY: ANOTHER MESSED UP REMAKE

When I first saw the original MOTHER'S DAY back in the eighties I was conflicted. I found it to be disturbing, vulgar, and gross and yet original and a low budget film that you found yourself forced to watch through to the end and remembering. The remake of that film has none of those attributes.

This time around we start with a group of friends christening the new house a young couple has bought. It's obvious that the woman in question isn't quite sure how she feels, but we have no idea why yet. The oddest thing about this gathering is how different each couple seems; as if there is no way that these couples would be friends in real life.

The second half of the story revolves around a trio of bank robbers, one of which has been badly wounded during their last heist. Unsure of where to go to escape the net the police have cast to catch them as well as an upcoming hurricane, they head to the safest place they know, their mother's house. The problem is that the house was foreclosed on months before and they haven't kept in touch with their mother to know this.

After walking into the house, they confront the couples there and recruit one, who happens to be a doctor, to take care of their brother. Only then do they call their mother on an unsecured line to find out what happened. While waiting for her arrival, they try to figure out to do. The most volatile of the bunch terrorizes the couples in the basement while the smart on attempts to make a plan.

Mother shows with their sister in a motor home, their new place to live. It turns out that the special phone she gave them was lost a while back which is why they had no idea what happened. She tries to calm down the couples in the basement and reprimands her boys for their behavior. She seems to be the calm one of the family.

But that changes. When they tell her they've been sending her money to this location, she begins asking the new home owners what they did with the money. Both tell her that they never received any packages but she doesn't believe them. She sends the oldest boy out with the woman of the house along with the debit cards of each person there to get money. To escape the country they'll need $10,000. While they're gone, she tries to find the answers as to where the money went.

As the story unfolds, the couples begin to turn on each other. Some want to make an attempt to escape, others want to take on the bad guys while a third group just wants to play along with whatever they want. Degradation and torture follow (not nearly as has happened in worse films of this sort) and solutions aren't forthcoming. Just who will survive the night remains to be seen.

If you've seen the original film you'll notice tons of changes, the setting being the first. Gone are the two redneck killers from the original to be replaced with three bank robbers. Mother isn't an elderly woman being replaced here by Rebecca DeMornay. Hurricane? Where did that come from? Stolen money? Couples?

The original film, though brutal for the time, focused on three friends camping who are captured by two redneck brothers who are encouraged by their mother. It was a story of survival. It took place in the deep back woods in rural America. The only thing this film has in common with the original is death by Drano and an impaled crotch.

I have yet to understand why folks who love a film feel the need to revamp it to make it something different. If you loved it, why change it so much? Then again the real reason is easy. It's easy to cash in or get financing when you have a known commodity to help draw people into a theater or to purchase a movie. Unfortunately to date no remake has lived up to the original and this film is proof of that. Which is saying a lot since the original was one of the first films brought to you by the folks at Troma, a company that makes a point of miniscule budgets and plenty of over the top gore. Don't bother with the remake and seek out the original if you're looking for a real horror film. This one only hopes you won't know what the first one was like.

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