Mommy (1995)

An unofficial "sequel" to "The Bad Seed", Patty McCormack's "Mommy" is psychotically obsessed with her 12-year-old daughter Jessica Ann -- so much so that when she finds out Jessica didn't ... See full summary »

Director:

Max Allan Collins

Writer:

Max Allan Collins

Stars:

Patty McCormack, Rachel Lemieux, Jason Miller

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Patty McCormack	...	Mommy
Rachel Lemieux	...	Jessica Ann
Jason Miller	...	Lt. March
Brinke Stevens	...	Beth
Michael Cornelison	...	Mark Jeffries
Majel Barrett	...	Mrs. Withers
Mickey Spillane	...	Attorney Neal Ekhardt
Sarah Jane Miller	...	Miss Jones the Janitor
Marian Wald	...	Principal
Mark Spellman	...	Detective
Janelle Vanerstrom	...	Substitute Teacher
Judith Meyers	...	Hallway Teacher
Nathan Collins	...	Gleeful Kid
Tom Castillo	...	Ambulance Attendant #1
Tom Summit	...	Ambulance Attendant #2

Storyline

An unofficial "sequel" to "The Bad Seed", Patty McCormack's "Mommy" is psychotically obsessed with her 12-year-old daughter Jessica Ann -- so much so that when she finds out Jessica didn't get the "Student of the Year" award again, she solves the problem by murdering the teacher who didn't recommend her for it. She dismisses the killing as inconsequential ("a minor accident"), but the homicide detective assigned to the case suspects her immediately, and an insurance investigator who also suspects her tries to get close to Jessica Ann to find out what really happened.

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Plot Keywords:

sequel | insurance | daughter | teacher | psychopath | 

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Taglines:

June Cleaver with a cleaver.

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 November 1995 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mommy - Wiegenlied einer Mörderin

Filming Locations:

Muscatine, Iowa, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$700,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

M.A.C. Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Miguel Ferrer, a close personal friend of writer/director Max Allan Collins, was originally attached to the movie in the role of Lt. March. Ferrer bowed out when he was offered a paid job on another film. 'Jason Miller (I)' was then contacted and promptly accepted the role.

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Connections

References The Bad Seed (1956)

User Reviews

It's the pits!

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.