Mommy’s Day (1997)

As the direct sequel to his 1995 Mommy movie, Max Allan Collins’ Mommy’s Day is the superior effort on every level. This achievement is reached despite its love-to-hate lead meta-quipping, “Don’t you know the sequel is never as good as the original?” Then again, this is uttered one moment before pushing a character’s head through a plugged-in computer monitor, so perhaps she didn’t mean it.

Yes, Patty McCormack is back and The Bad Seedier than ever as murderous matriarch Mrs. Sterling — still preppy, still malicious and still xenophobic! She’s an hour away from getting the needle in death row when she’s selected to be a guinea pig for a “revolutionary antipsychotic drug” implanted within the arm, making her — in her own words — “new and improved, like a laundry detergent.” Although sprung from the pokey and into an experimental halfway house, Mommy is banned from seeing her beloved teen daughter, Jessica Ann (Rachel Lemieux, who only acted again in Collins’ next and best film, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market), now in braces and deep in training for an ice-skating competition.

Oh, and homicides soon happen.

Pulp-fic legend Mickey Spillane and scream queen Brinke Stevens reprise their supporting roles, alongside comedy improv legend Del Close and WKRP in Cincinnati program director Gary Sandy, respectively joining this second go-round as the warden and a nose-pokin’ police sergeant. Jessica Ann cedes the spotlight as Collins makes Mommy the focus. Perhaps with her coronation to front and center, McCormack dials the hysteria up one notch, and is more fun to watch as a result.

Apparently, her spirit was infectious; Collins seems more engaged with the material this time around. In particular, he adds a subplot as Mrs. Sterling appears on a daytime talk show, allowing him to satirize (if only mildly) the “trash TV” format popular at the time, à la Ricki Lake, Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich and their collective ambush techniques. Shot on higher-definition video, Mommy’s Day boasts a sharper picture throughout and a well-earned twist in the third act. With a meatier mélange of kill scenes than its predecessor, Mommy’s Day is often mischaracterized as a slasher film, but it remains a thrifty thriller — albeit one with a shower-set murder via ghetto blaster — from the good ol’ days when America made it a Blockbuster night. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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