Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

TheBlueHairedLawyer I never expected Troma to make something like this; Trmoa has a reputation for its low-budget horror and personally I really enjoyed The Toxic Avenger, Redneck Zombies and The Children. This unofficial sequel to the 1956 horror film The Bad Seed went way beyond my expectations, and it even stars Patty McCormack, who played Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed.It's the 1990's, and Jessica Ann is a little girl doing exceptional in school, has a loving aunt... but there's one catch, her controlling and obsessive mother, known only as "Mommy", has come to visit Jessica Ann's favorite teacher because the top student award was given to a Hispanic kid rather than Jessica Ann. Jessica tries to convince Mommy that her classmate deserved the medal, but Mommy refuses to listen to reason, ultimately leading to the teacher's death. Soon Jessica recalls her "Daddy" who died, as well as kind old Mr. Sterling, who was her stepfather until he willed all his cash to Mommy... and then died. It isn't long before the school janitor is murdered and Jessica Ann realizes that Mommy might be more than just her mother.At first I wasn't sure that this was a Troma movie, although the brief shot of a chemical factory shown towards the end when Jessica Ann and Mommy rent a motel room vaguely reminded me of Troma's reputation for making movies on the subject of pollution. The acting, not only from Patty McCormack but from everyone else, was really amazing for an independent film, it's obviously low-budget but has great soundtrack and I loved seeing The Bad Seed's legacy being continued in a new film. Not everything low-budget is bad, watch it with an open mind and you might be really surprised.

Tura23 Yes, it is low budget, and yes it is shot on video for the direct to DVD market but I've seen much, much, worse. I can only imagine that the critics of this movie went into it with the wrong expectations.Patty McCormack is great as the deranged Mommy, her performance is definitely over the top, just as it should be in this kind of movie. She's acting as hard as she can and it is not a role which calls for subtlety. Rachel Lemieux may not be the most accomplished actress in the world - but she's less annoying than most children in low budget films. It's also nice to see Brinke Stevens in a (more or less) dramatic role.If you are looking for a high quality movie with lots of drama, gore, and topless Brinke Stevens, this is definitely not it. However, if you're looking for something kind of campy which you can enjoy making fun of (in an MST3K kind of way) then you could do a lot worse than this.

lost-in-limbo An over-obsessive mom wants the best for her daughter and for herself, but when she learns that this year her daughter isn't winning the award that she has won for the last couple times. She marches straight to the teacher's classroom to make her change her mind and reward in to her daughter. The teacher doesn't budge from her decision; so the mother kills the teacher and makes it look like it was an accident. When the police are called in, one of the detectives don't believe the mother's story and goes out of his way to trying to convict her too it.Whoa! I didn't expect it to have that much of a high rating. After a friend told me that 'Mommy' wasn't too bad, maybe my hopes were a little too high because when I finally got around to watching it, I found it to be incoherently boring. I know this is a limited-budget indie production that went straight-to-video, but it's executed without any real conviction and a lack of inventiveness shows. Yeah, like others have said it tries to be atmospheric and psychologically gripping. But the thing is it TRIES, but fails miserably. Half of the film was spent in very poor lit scenes that it was plain unbearable. Sometimes you're squinting to see what's actually going on and that's quite frustrating. Lighting people! With such a restrained budget obviously the results didn't work out so great in the long run.The plot is a muddle of ridiculous plot details and twists. Patty McCormick's character is named only mom and is kind of hinted, but I don't think officially as if this is a sequel to 'The Bad Seed'. That doesn't make it essential viewing though… far from it actually. There's no real background or insight about why she acts like the way she does. Though some minor stuff is brought about her past, but it never clearly explains anything. She definitely most interesting but its never brought out and most of the attention centres around the kid. The child provides some narration that adds a more caring approach to the material, but everything about it moves at a snails pace with many irrelevant padding. Starts off interesting enough, but not too long it falls by the wayside with a formulaic pattern of most thrillers. The plot tries to drive itself with the characters, but they aren't that enticing or fleshed out to really care. Gradually further the film went along the more I was trying to keep my eyes open and if not that I found myself easily being distracted. Those many dark sequences where it was hard to work out what was happening attributed a lot to those factors.What's quite surprising is to see the likes of Patty McCormick, Jason Miller and Brinke Stevens appear in this junk. They're pretty much shadows of their old selves here. Patty McCormick intentionally hams it up as the whacked up Mom. She's one antsy b!tch. Jason Millar as the snooping Lt. March and Brinke Stevens as kind aunty Beth give dispirited performances. The rest of the support cast were bystanders, but Rachael Lemieux as Jessica Ann showed up the big names as the little girl caught up in her mother's mess. She was actually pretty good and definitely gave the best and most well rounded performance. The dialog is pure fluff and emotionally strained. Really, that's not much of a surprise.The film looks okay, if even a bit stale and amateurish. Although the bad lighting really did get on my nerves and lack of imagination showed up in the filming techniques. That can be blamed to budget restrictions. Like a fellow user had mentioned, it was shot on video, but it's incredibly grainy and shows up like a doco. The whole set-up kind of reminded of one of those enactments you see in missing person's shows and documentaries. While sometimes everything felt like it was in slow motion and the conversations were just laughably trite and unbelievable. The score is often misplaced and when so it's rather overstated beyond belief. The awful tune 'Mommy's Day' that opens and closes proceedings is a real headache inducer. I don't know why this film is rated MA (Australian) because the context is quite tame in retrospect and sometimes it came across rather childish. The violence was more often cutaway and rather unappetising. When it comes to the finale its wraps off with an unconvincing payoff and fades away in a puff of smoke. Maybe I'm the wrong target audience, but in my eyes this was one lacklustre effort. I notice after a short while I was continuously checking how long it has been running for. When you're doing that you know it's not much of a good sign."Can we watch Seinfield…" Now that's better time spent! Seriously. Maybe if you're fan of the stars, go right ahead.

kieransingh I do not understand how this managed to get 5.3 stars. Firstly, the cast just plain suck, no decent actors in there at all. Second, the plot is ridiculous. The TV guide said it was rated 18, but I don't think there was any blood, swearing, sex or anything else you would find in an 18 movie in it. It's just a stupid movie. The plot about the psychotic mother is stupid, it's not suspenseful or thrilling. It just made me laugh at the sheer badness of it. The basic plot is that this little girl Jessica Ann lives in her house with her mum. Her mother always told her to do her best blahhdy blahhdy blah. Anyway, the girl doesn't win a prize at school, so the mother kills the teacher. This leads to a load of stupid deaths, boring dialogue and basically a bland, horrible film. If this film came out in the cinema, I would've killed someone it's that bad. If I were ever to see this movie again, I would take my eyes, douse them in a lethal acid so I couldn't see this poor excuse for a movie. Then, I would take two Q-Tips and insert them so far into my ears that they block out any sound so I would not have to listen to the poor acting of a plain bad script. Then, maybe if I had time, I would change the channel and watch Fairly Odd Parents.If this ever comes on TV, put something else on. Seriously, change the channel, don't waste your precious time on this hunk of garbage. End Of. x