Mother's Day(2011) Genre: Thriller, run time: 102 minutes, 3/5

I am a man who likes his gore served raw. Yes, if a film promises in its promotions to leave you drenched in blood then it should fulfill it and should not turn out to be a damp squib like Evil Dead. But to meet my “high” standards, the violence should be central to the plot and not ubiquitous a la Grotesque. 

Trepidation best describes what I was feeling when I began watching Mother’s Day. With a name like that and a poster featuring an unknown (to me) actress as the titular Mother, I had absolutely no expectation. One of my friends’ had literally shoved its DVD in my hand telling me that it was absolutely “balls blowing”. To give him the satisfaction and to massage his ego, I decided to watch this. Although it did not rip through my gonads and my family jewels are still intact and glorious in their curvaceousness, I am glad that I watched this.

This is the remake of a 80s movie of the same name. I consider myself quite knowledgeable in the important matters of life like movies, books and single girls/women. However, to be honest, I hadn’t heard of the original before. 

The story is pretty straight forward. Three brothers who rob banks take shelter in their "own" house. However, this being the times of recession, their house has new occupants courtesy foreclosure proceedings. To complicate matters a bit and to increase the body count, the new owners are in the midst of a party with nearly half a dozen of their friends. 

The brothers soon take control of the house and the situation and begin waiting for their Mother and sister. Their arrival exacerbates the situation quite rapidly.

What I really liked about this was that in all such type of films, it is quite easy to predict the survivors of the onslaught. However, here there are no clear cut heroes and most of the characters get equal treatment from the scriptwriter and hence nearly the same screen time. 

The violence, when it comes, ends up rattling because of its suddenness. Sometimes, the after effects of brutality are visible only at the corner of the screen which makes one believe that the producer/director wanted to tell a story rather than indulge in shock and awe.

The brothers and the Mother are masterly creations. Their callous barbarity would screw up with your mind. I was actually mentally cheering every act of retribution against them by the victims.

The acting is pretty decent. I could recognize only one actor, the one who plays a doctor in this. You may remember him as the guy from X Men United, the one who indulges in lip lock with the girl who has these powers of literally sucking the power by mere touch. 

The director is Mr. Bousman, the creator of past “gore fests with stories” like Saw 2,3 and 4. He brings his expertise and keeps the watcher interested for the most part.

It is a good movie, one which would give you an adrenaline rush and may just end up as being recommend by you to someone else as a balls-to-the-wall thrill ride.

V/H/S(2012) Genre: Horror, Runtime: 110 minutes, 3/5

This is an anthology of six short horror movies. Five of them are stories within the central tale. They range from the truly bone chilling and mind numbing to the ridiculous. 

Three guys spend their time shooting videos for porn sites. They grab women, tear off their clothes and film the exposed body parts. They are hired to steal a V/H/S tape from a person. However, on reaching their destination, they find a dead body and a cache of these tapes. One of them begins viewing the tapes while the others go out to search the house.  The tapes have on then stuff which is positively mind-fucking.

For me, the best segment was the first.  Three college guys go bar hopping to pick up girls. The nerdy looking dude has these glasses which have in built camera in them. The story is told from his P.O.V.  The horror is sprung suddenly on the unwary viewer. The end is absolutely fantastic. At the end of the segment, I was practically kicking myself for not viewing this earlier as I have had this movie for nearly six months. 

The second segment is about a couple who are on a holiday. Their stay in the hotel turns into something terrifying when a young girl shows up one day asking for a lift.

The third segment shows four people going to a cabin in the woods. There is a legend of a killer who used to operate in the area. Is he still around?

A girl is chatting with her boyfriend/fiancée on Skype.  Some ghostly entity is visiting her at night. There is a mysterious bump on her hand. She starts showing him the ghostly manifestations using Skype.

Four guys go to a Halloween party. However, the house is empty. Thinking it as a prank they go to the top of the house from where some muffled moans are coming. What do they find there?

The last segment shows the date as 1998 which gives a valid reason for it to be recorded on tape and not a CD/DVD. It is kind of stupid to assume that someone would keep a Skype chat on V/H/S .But if one stops nitpicking about these small technicalities and immerses himself in the experience, he would not be disappointed.

The majority of the stories are novel twists on old themes. The way they lure the viewer into a sense of complacency and then unleash doom is unsettling. 

This would have been a terrific horror classic if one or two segments would have been chopped off and there would have been a better end to the central story. The promise of the first segment is squandered away by the succeeding ones. However, this is a far cry from the pedestrian Evil Dead and I loved it for the twisted ways the stories unfolded.

I read that the sequel is out and has garnered extraordinarily good reviews for a shoe string budget horror anthology.  I can’t wait to check it out.

I recommend this to the viewer who has had his patience stretched thin by the recent crop of so called terrifying movies. Kindly watch this. May be an iota of your lost faith in this genre would be restored.