Back in 2010 a film came out titled Mothers Day, and I do kind of remember this film, sure it fell under the radar and vanished in to the realm of obscurity but hey what film hasn’t.

The film starred Rebecca De Mornay who I must admit I do love when she plays a villain, if you haven’t seen Hand That Rocks The Cradle stop what you are doing and watch it!

It is without a doubt the most creepiest villains you see, she plays that character so bloody well it’s chilling.

The film also stars Frank Grillo and Jaime King as a couple hosting a party in their home, we see them going through a bit of a rough patch in their life, we don’t fully understand why that is until later on.

De Mornay’s family invade the home thinking it’s still theirs from their childhood, little do they know that they lost the house in a foreclosure.

Beth and Daniel end up becoming hostages as well as the other party guests.

This is where the cliches come in to play, you know the ones.

Villain has hid something around the house and it’s always either a small fortune or stack loads of money, the new owners deny any existence of said item and then end up paying the price.

We see the guests endure various torture methods, one including boiling hot water poured in to the ear, while quite tame in comparison to one poor bastard getting a shotgun pellet to his face the kills in this flick are… meh.

Now don’t get me wrong there are rather painful moments including one guy getting a snooker ball to the hand, compared to the shotgun part they are rather tame.

I must say though however my favourite part was when de mornay taunts Grillo’s character.

Halfway through the film we learn through old photos and newspaper clippings, that the reason their going through a rough patch is because Grillo and Kings characters Daniel and Beth had a little boy named Jake who sadly passed away after being hit by a car.

De Mornay shows the old photos including Jake’s old toys and demands where the money is, taunting him saying if he kept an eye on him instead of letting him run out in to the street he’d be here today, tucked up in bed.

It’s an intense scene and you really feel for poor Daniel here, seeing a psychotic woman burn a photo of your son while your duct taped and tied up must be hard to watch.

The worst part is where she douses the keepsake box with alcohol and burns the rest of Jake’s belongings, it is a rather depressing scene to say the least.

As I said in the title Mother’s Day offers nothing new, it’s cliche ridden but it is decent watch I did have a good time with it but you can tell why it’s underrated, the production value feels cheap.

The acting sometimes is subpar, there were a few scenes where I did roll my eyes and think “oh god really”

De Mornay’s character is brilliant however, like I said she plays a terrific villain.

I give this film a 4.5 out of ten, it’s a decent flick but deep down it is a run of the mill home invasion horror, if you want a good recommendation for this particular sub genre check out Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman, now that’s a home invasion thriller worth seeing.

But as always until next time, catch ya later 🙂

When does a movie studio come to the realisation that the movies your churning out are not that good? Well if your Blumhouse the answer is… never.

Let me explain.

Back in 2009 we were greeted with one of the most scariest found footage films since the Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity.

Much like Blair Witch it starred complete unknowns, and quickly became the most scariest found footage film ever made, and with good reason, the film followed young couple Katie and Micah as they document demonic hauntings in their California home.

It was of course Blumhouse’s first movie, soon after they quickly became a powerhouse within the horror genre.

Solely relying on low budgets and relatively unknown directors they took the world of horror by storm, and then… something happened.

The quality dipped, the movies were becoming… rubbish, rather than solely focus on what made them big in the first place, they made bog standard run of the mill horror with cheap effects, and over the top jump scares.

They even went down the franchises route and made rather unnecessary sequels to otherwise great films, paranormal activity for instance, the first one was great, it was scary… it did it what set out to do which was to scare the absolute crap out of you.

There is a reason people say it’s the scariest found footage movie ever made, and… they’re not wrong.

But then they bought out the sequel Paranormal Activity 2, it was… okay, the scares were still there but I don’t know I felt like there was something missing, I can’t quite put my finger on what that missing thing is, I just feel like there’s something, maybe it’s just me.

They then released the prequel with the third one, now this was great! We got a flashback to when Katie and Kristie were little, we got the backstory that we all wanted, and it delivered, it was a worthy prequel.

Until!

They made a spin-off, a Mexican family this time, it still had the found footage element but again it fell flat, then they released the fourth one and well… let’s just say the less said about that the better.

Then the dreaded fifth one came out, I went with my younger sister to see it, there was me and her and three other people in the theatre, the scares… well, I can’t remember there being any, and that ending! Good god in heaven it was bad, like I vividly remember when the credits rolled I went “was that it” sure I got a few laughs but I was being serious, was that it?

After the fifth one was released I do think this is where they started dipping in quality.

Remember the film Sinister? Starred Ethan Hawke as a true crime novelist who moves his family in to a murder home so he can write his next book, terrifying, critics loved it as did I.

It was a breath of fresh air, it didn’t just rely on cheap, tacky jump scares no, it relied on tension as well.

Then we got a sequel, we didn’t ask for it, we didn’t need it, but somehow we got one.

It felt flat, it felt… well I can’t even put it into words but it was bad, sure it still had the same formula as the first one but… the first one had great acting, this on good god, my cat could have acted better than those actors, now I rarely speak bad of child actors I really do, I always praise them, it’s just…

Some child actors have it… and others well… they don’t, and the two boys in this sequel didn’t have it, I’m sorry to say but they were bad, I know I know I feel terrible but believe me they were.

Call me harsh, call me mean but that’s what I thought.

Now don’t get me wrong for every bad movie they have released there are some pretty decent ones, as I mentioned sinister, the first Insidious movie, Oculus directed by Hill House and Bly Manor director Mike Flanagan, and of course the Halloween reboot released back in 2018 (we won’t mention the sequels)

Flash forward to today and they haven’t made a decent horror flick in my opinion for a good few years, again they solely rely on sequels and run of the mill scares.

There’s no passion from them anymore.

That’s a bold statement but just look at their recent flicks.

Imaginary, about an imaginary friend that kills people, again the premise is fantastic but the payoff was god awfully cheap.

Night Swim, I reviewed that earlier this year and did not hold back on how bad it was, I mentioned the premise, no one has seen a haunted swimming pool before in films, night swim was supposed to give us that and instead we got… cheap and cheesy scares with god awful character decision making seriously watch the film and get back to me regarding the decisions they make in this film, thank me later.

I used to be a massive fan of Blumhouse, but after a string of crappy films is it time for this distributor to go bye bye?

Believe it or not but the box office numbers tell a completely different story.

People love them, sure they complain that it’s bad but they love it, as strange the human race is we love a good scare.

In my honest opinion I really do think they need to take a step back, take a good look in the mirror and say “here’s where we’re going wrong” and work on that.

Will it work? Will they come back and regain their control as a powerhouse of horror industry?

Time will tell.

Until next time catch ya later 🙂