Mamá diabólica

#272 Mom - 1990 (This Film Rates a C+ ) Set against the backdrop of Christmas Eve, Mom (1990) blends horror, dark comedy, and family drama in a story that never fully commits to its potential. The film opens with elderly Emily Dwyer preparing for a holiday dinner, awaiting her journalist son, Clay. A news report on unsolved murders plays in the background-an ominous hint of what's to come. When Emily rents a room to a peculiar blind man named Nestor, the mood shifts sharply. Nestor attacks her and begins luring victims to their deaths. Clay and his pregnant girlfriend, Alice, arrive for a brief visit, unaware that Emily-now literally sleeping beside a severed arm-has been transformed into a "flesh eater" under Nestor's control. The narrative takes on a grim path: Nestor and Emily abduct and cannibalize a drunk homeless man, Clay witnesses the act, and a tense confrontation ensues. Believing they've eliminated Nestor, Clay tries to restore some semblance of normalcy, but Emily's cravings for human flesh remain insatiable. His desperate attempts to contain her-locking her in her room, installing bars on her windows-are both sad and tragic. Eventually, in a moral collapse, Clay lures a prostitute for his mother to kill, triggering a chaotic chain of events that brings the police to their doorstep. The climax aims for emotional weight but lands with disappointing impact. While there are subtle comedic touches that keep the tone from becoming too heavy-handed, the believability of the setting, plot, and character motivations is rather limited. The gore is underwhelming, especially for the premise and could have had much more promise. The soundtrack is serviceable but unremarkable, and despite a strong Christmas atmosphere in the opening scenes, the holiday theme quickly fades into the background. Mom straddles the line between zombie horror and demonic possession without ever fully defining itself. With sharper execution, stronger effects, and a more consistent tone, it could have been something memorable. Instead, it remains a curious, uneven entry in early '90s horror genre.

Several memorable double meanings in "Mom" are teetering on the edge of "black comedy", but there is no further development of the comedy angle. Therefore, I must conclude that this was never intended to be a dark comedy. The horror elements are crude, however the story is memorable for such a low budget film. Brion James has limited screen time, but sets things in motion with a bite to Mom's shoulder. Along the lines of Steve Buscemi in "Ed and His Dead Mother", Mark Thomas Miller is torn between his love for his Mom, and the realization that she is addicted to human flesh. Special mention must be made of Stella Stevens performance as a bar trollop, as it is excellent. = MERK

Well, I must say, this film is not that bad. There are quiet good moments. Jeanne Bates plays fantastic, as lovely elderly "mom", and

Mark Thomas Miller as her son is even good. There are some gory, gruesome moments, some dramatic, some funny and, yes, also sad...

The end is such a sad moment. Mom isn´t an ordinary horror-slasher, I would say, it´s the connection between American Werewolf and Omen.

6 of 10 stars

My review was written in June 1991 after watching the movie on an RCA/Columbia video cassette.

At first an effective turnabout in posing a kindly mother as a monstrous killer, "Mom" shifts into a pretentious mode that fails to whip up pathos. Originally scheduled as a TWE video release last year, the horror comedy still bears the TWE logo bhut arrives as an RCA/Columbia title.

FIlm's prolog establishes blind Brion James as a serial killer of pregnant women, with guest star Claudia Christian his latest Christmas Eve victim.

Fiml proper has Jame arriving at kindly old Jeanne Bates' house to become a roomer. He bites Bates and turns her into a monster with a similar blood lust, though she does not copy his expectant mothers' fetish.

Bates' son is tv news reporter Mark Thomas Miller, who coincidentally is working on the same case of corpses created by James and Bates. In filmmaker Patrick Rand's wildly uneven screenplay, Miller quickly discovers James' hold over his mom, literally burns up the fiend and then covers up his parent's connection to the murders.

With many scenes played straight, "Mom" creates effective camp contrasts between the quaint old lady and the bloody mayhem she instigates. But it's difficult to keep the pot boiling, and later reels concentrating on Miller's predicament come off as silly.

Rand's in-jokes are a dud, such as Mom appearing on the stairs doing a Gloria Swanson routine from the climax of "Sunset Blvd.". Pic's best moments are provided by Stella Stevens, extremely sexy as an overage prostitute Miller brings home to mother one night.

Rest of the cast is bland, particularly Bates who never rises to a level of sympathetic fright. Makeup effects are okay but occasional ubbing of Bates with a masculine demonic voice is old hat.

Oddball horror/comedy about a sweet grey haired mother who is bitten by a werewolf or some sort of creature of the night (played by the always great Brion James) and transforms her into a bloodthirsty creature of the night, much to the consternation of her yuppie adult son who only wants to help her and stop her from killing. The film really grabbed me with the opening of Brion James as a blind man attacking a prostitute played by Claudia Christian. James then goes on to ingratiate himself to the titular mother who invites him into her home, only for him to attack her and turn her into a werewolf. The dark humor around a sweet old lady with blood dripping down her matronly house dresses is pretty funny and does go a long way, but the rest of the film isn't all that clever or interesting. Art Evans and Stella Stevens also appear in the film, but horror/comedies rarely seem to work and outside of seeing a kindly old lady viciously killing, there ins't a lot to recommend here.