#6 - Mother's Day (1980)

Mother's Day (1980)

Eli Roth claims that this early Troma slasher is his all-time favorite horror film, and I can definitely see why.  This movie did some pretty creative things at a time when the genre was still in it's infancy.  Some interesting trivia - the original Friday the 13th was shot at the exact same time, on the opposite side of the same lake.  It would be fun to watch the two back-to-back - that other film became the prototype for a decade of slasher films, while this one still comes across as fresh and surprising 30+ years later.

The plot starts out standard enough - three young women go camping in the woods, only to be attacked by a group of redneck yokels and subjected to sadistic torture and rape.  However, these rednecks are just so damn likeable - the "boys" act just like kids, and Mother is equal parts sweet and sadistic.  When the film takes a major shift about halfway through, we are no longer afraid for the girls, and instead start to root for the killers.  Well, a little bit anyway - they are certainly not "good" in any way, but there is definitely a sympathetic side to them that very few horror movie villains ever get.

This is also a very funny film, in it's own sick and sadistic way (it's from Troma, after all).  I really liked it, but I can see why it has never reached much more than cult status.  Recommended for slasher fans, Troma fans, and anyone interested in the movie that turned a young Eli Roth into the sick bastard he is now.