Mad Mom

Because of the quality of actors, and a believable script, this is top notch Lifetime fair. I wish every one of their outings could be this enjoyable. Kari Matchett & Romy Rosemont give stand out performances as the mothers of the bride & groom. They play the roles to perfection, as if the writer had them in mind as he wrote the script. Kari Matchett plays the over-stepping art snob, who we love to hate. Romy Rosemont plays the bride's mother, a traditional, uncultured hospice nurse, who we sympathize with; can you guess who the villain is? Co-stars Victoria Diamond & Matthew Raudsepp also give believable performances as the engaged children. Every scene is believable, including the main setting, the house of Jill Jones (Kari Matchett). It is just as it should be, full of art and pretentiousness, and gives a great backdrop to most of the movie. Salvatore Antonio adds the final touch as Jill's art gallery partner, and fellow snob. Mix all these great elements, a believable script, great settings, outstanding actors, and you have one of Lifetime's greatest movies. My only complaint would be the 2 names they chose. Both are cheesy and don't do the film justice.

If you like TV movies, especially thrillers, give this one a shot, you won't be disappointed.

A Canadian-produced re-visit to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Sort of. The "villain" is a widowed hospice nurse named Sharon who on the one hand kills her patients but on the other hand espouses Christian values-- i.e., concerned that her daughter gets married in a church by a pastor as opposed to a backyard ceremony conducted by a buddy with a minister's degree he got online. How unreasonable and square of her. She is also a little on the dumpy side and wears flower print blouses-- i.e a clue that.she is tacky lower middle class. There are several shots of a gold cross around Sharon's neck in case you miss the mocking slap at Christianity. The "victim/heroine" is Jill, the groom's mother: a slim- bordering on anorexic -blond,agnostic "artistic"' type usually dressed in flowing black with perfect make-up, perfect hair and hip accessories. No father of the groom in evidence, with Jill explaining her son's presumably out-of- wedlock birth as the two of them being alone against the world from the beginning. As a rich, chic liberal, she presumably never bothered with a paternity document much less child support. Jill lives in an absurdly huge and stylized modern mansion--what Canadians in Montreal clearly believe rich Americans in Boston would live in--complete with a panelled glass waterfall. Jill also has a gallery partner named Evan. When the two of them get together they dish dirt like teen-aged school girls about Sharon.. Not surprisingly, Sharon and Jill don't get along, and without giving anything away, ultimately Jill (Joan Crawford) becomes dependent on Sharon (Bette Davis). No black maid murdered in this movie, but it's not hard to guess who will be filling in for Elvira. I can't recall what the betrothed couple even look like--they come across as complete zeros. A few suspenseful scenes but over-all a shameless rip-off of "Baby Jane" with the most outrageous, unfair and hostile stereotypes of BOTH "religious" and "secular" characters I have ever seen on film.

Above average made for TV movie and better than I expected. If you see it pop up anytime watch it. It's a well acted and made movie

This is so cool!! You hot so little information about Sharon and her life and then... PSYCHO MOM!! I loved this!! I wanna know more! And those art snobs. OMG!! Great actors, totally insane intense music. See it and take it for what it is!

Just so we're clear: I honestly, thoroughly love this movie. My best friend and I watch a ton of Lifetime movies because they're over-dramatic, absolutely ridiculous, and outrageously entertaining for those of us who like good cringe fests and so-bad-they're-good movies. The problem? Sometimes Lifetime tries too hard, and we get paltry efforts of making actual good movies (like their "based on a true story" attempts, which aren't any good for people like us looking for fun entertainment to laugh far too hard at while drinking ourselves senseless). Though Mad Mom might not go down in history with Lifetime cringe classics like Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life, it honestly should. It's less cringy than outright entertaining in an over-dramatic sense if you find the subject of jealous and insane mothers to be one of interest (hint: I do). On to the review.

Mad Mom takes the aforementioned simple subject of an insane mother and cranks it up to the extreme. Here's the story in a nutshell: a young woman, Amber, is getting married. She adores her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Jill, and considers her one of her greatest friends. The problem? Momma Bear Sharon has drastically different views from Jill on life, love, marriage, etc., and she's insanely jealous of her daughter's growing relationship with Jill and Jill's involvement in the wedding.

So what do we have? Hilarious shenanigans. Honestly, I haven't been so consistently entertained by a movie--ever. Have you ever read Reddit threads where people complain about their real life crazy parents and/or in-laws? How about where people tell stories of actual bridezillas or wedding shenanigans? Mad Mom takes almost every "don't" on the "Do's and Don'ts" list of family relationships and weddings and over-dramatizes it with zoom-in shots, middle aged mother angry "Karen" glares, and exceedingly threatening fallouts. Don't believe me? Watch the trailer (it's on YouTube). If you don't find the absolute ridiculousness of it all hilarious, I suggest checking your pulse.

What made this movie for me is Romy Rosemont's over-the-top performance as Sharon (the insane one). Without her "I need to speak to the manager" glares and efforts to be intimidating that instead make her look like a struggling fish out of water, this movie could have just been *actually* bad. Instead, it's glorious. Absolutely glorious. I could be biased--Romy's character here bears a striking resemblance to the mother figure from Liam Kyle Sullivan's comedic mid-2000s "Kelly" YouTube skits, but I could be dating myself with that reference. I digress.

Listen: this is the second time I've tried to leave a glowing review for this movie here (they never posted the first), and yet I sat down and took the time to write all this out AGAIN. I'm serious. This movie made me laugh more often and harder than any comedy of the last (let me check the dates)...twenty-five years. I have seriously tried to find this somewhere, anywhere, so I can show it to my husband next (who loves dramatic mother/mother-in-law stories for REASONS). I would SPEND MONEY to buy this movie. I could just hug it for being its sassy self.

...The reason I rated it a 8/10 rather than a 10/10, you ask? Meh...something about giving a perfect score to a so-bad-it's-good movie feels dishonest, particularly considering all the excess work that goes into actual films like There Will Be Blood. The one thing I will say is honestly quality about this movie is the editing: the zooms, quick-cuts to dramatic stares, and overly excited music up the comedic value. I highly, highly recommend Mad Mom to anyone looking for a laugh.