Mother's Day may be gory, but it's not one to remember...

Take one 1980 Troma film, distill the base elements from it, combine it with the director of three installments of one of the most successful horror franchises of recent years and you'd think you'd have a sure fire recipe for an enjoyable bloody romp. Sadly Saw II, III and IV director Darren Lynn Bousman's update of Charles (brother of Troma head honcho and inspirational filmmaker Lloyd) Kaufman's infamous exploitation flick Mother's Day doesn't quite deliver the horror hot cakes, but equally it isn't an undercooked mess like the tripe served up by Sony Screen Gems as of late (witness, at your peril, the recent Stepfather (2009) and When A Stranger Calls (2006) remakes).

The film begins on a promising note, with a prologue set in a nursing hospital in which we get stalking, Carpenter-esque piano riffs, abduction and good old fashioned murder by very, very big knife. We then cut to a birthday party at the home of Beth and Daniel Sohapi (Jaime King and Frank Grillo, both putting in solid performances here) where the first major - and positive - surprise of the film occurs. In a surprising turn of events - and credit where credit's due - writer Scott Millan has ensured that the assembled guests are a group of people that we actually (gasp) give at least half a crap about, largely due to the absence of any goths, potheads, airheads or any other annoying tick-em-off-as-they-die stereotypes.

Of course, being a movie from the man who brought us three helpings of Jigsaw and the deliciously warped Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) this party was never going to end with candles being blown out and mild hangovers. As the guests shoot pool in the storm reinforced basement, a trio of brothers crash the bash having fled the scene of a bungled bank robbery, one of them doing a Mr Orange and bleeding all over the back seat.

Believing that they're returning to the refuge of their family home, the boys are a little upset to discover that they no longer live there thanks to mommy dearest having lost the house several months earlier through repossession, a somewhat important fact they were unaware of thanks to big brother Ike having lost the only phone that he could get hold of Mother on (didn't think to write that very important number down elsewhere, then?). Needless to say the Sohapis and their guests are equally unimpressed by the gun toting trio gatecrashing their birthday celebrations and ruining the lovely IKEA couch in the process (do you know how difficult it is to get blood out of a sofa?!)

So far, so good as far as the film is going, but there's a welcome upwards gear shift around the corner as the boys call their Mother by way of their sister Lydia (hang on, suddenly they can get hold of her?), who dutifully arrives in a monstrous Winnebago and proceeds to take control of the situation.

Enter one Natalie Koffin - aka the still sexy, one time purveyor of risky business Rebecca De Mornay - who takes her Hand That Rocks The Cradle character and dials it up to 11 as the mother who will do anything for her boys (oh, and her girl too, though you’d be forgiven for not realizing this as Deborah Ann Woll’s believably vulnerable Lydia character is momentarily given the potential to shine and make a real difference to the plot, but is then abruptly pushed aside) and who provides a good deal of Jigsaw style moralising about her decisions that inevitably result in several bouts of second reel torture porn brutality.

Again, so far, so good, but then we reach the third act, and suddenly it seems that writer Scott Millan popped out for lunch and the cat took over, because we lurch from the relative believability of the first hour into a ridiculous number of farcical deaths - to include assault by nail gun, bread board, cistern lid and quick lime (in a scene that provoked guffaws from the audience I saw this with). And then there's the ending, which felt tacked on and completely unnecessary apart from the obvious setting up of a potential sequel, and which drew audible groans, my own among them.

That said, Mother's Day isn't a terrible movie, and in fact has a lot going for it. The main cast all put in solid performances (particularly De Mornay as the maniacal matriarch; King as the brutalised and betrayed wife who is harboring a secret of her own; and Woll, who is heartbreakingly believable as the timid, but criminally underused Lydia Koffin) and there is more than enough brutality and violence to satisfy the most ardent gorehounds and Saw fans, though Bousman does use the old ‘one of you must kill the other or else we’ll kill you both’ schtick one too many times.

On the downside, though, there are just too many niggling faults with Mother’s Day for it to be considered essential viewing, not least the running time, which could have trimmed at least ten minutes from the sagging second act without losing anything, and a couple of lapses in logic that spoiled an otherwise realistic home invasion scenario.

Overall, Mother’s Day will appeal to those who are missing their Jigsaw fix and are prepared to overlook the film’s shortcomings. Everyone else, however, should approach with caution, as there are just too many flaws to recommend what otherwise could have been a damn good thriller.

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