Mother’s Day 2010 ***

Troma’s name will forever be associated with the good natured trash of the 80’s video boom, but producer Lloyd Kaufman returned to the fray in 2010 for this buttoned-down remake of his original slasher movie.  Roping in Darren Lynn Bousman from the Saw franchise, Mother’ Day is a tough little crime drama, with Rebecca De Mornay excelling as the matriarch who enters a domestic siege situation created by her three criminal sons. They’ve returned home to find a new couple have moved into mother’s suburban bolt-hole, and their attempts to terrorise the occupants of the house are taken to new extremes when mother comes back. Mother’s Day is a straight-faced and intense thriller, with no cheap laughs or self-referential nods, and De Mornay is a fearsome adversary; nail-guns and other items are put to teeth-clenching use, but Bousman never lets his material go over-the-top in this accomplished genre entry.