Monday, July 11, 2011

Mom (1991)

Sweet old lady Emily Dwyer rents a room in her house to creepy oddball Nestor. When Emily decides to invite Nestor to dinner for a home cooked meal to get to know him better, it back fires when he turns into a monster and bites her.

Reporter Clay Dwyer goes to check on his Mom after no one has seen her for a few days and finds her sick in bed with Nestor taking care of her. Although he's uncomfortable with Nestor, he heads off to work, telling her he'll be back later to check on her.

When he returns that night, he sees Mom and Nestor getting into a taxi and follows them to a run down part of town. He observes them heading down an alley with a homeless person, goes to investigate and finds them eating the poor man. Horrified Clay runs off, but later returns to the scene on his job as a news reporter.

Clay confronts his mother, has a showdown with Nestor, and tries to keep his Mom from killing anyone else. He becomes consumed with keeping his mother locked in her room so she can do no more damage. But there are instances when she manages to get out and since Clay won't feed her, she's so hungry she has to take matters into her own hands. Clay is seen several times at murder scenes and ends up disposing of evidence which makes one wonder if he will eventually be the scapegoat for the crimes.

Jeanne Bates is fantastic as Mom. Even though she is a killer, she was an extremely sympathetic character. While her son means well, he was pretty annoying and I had to root for his Mom because she did such a great job with the role. There's some blood and guts, but more often it's about the the story than the gore.

No comments: