As many of you know, the 1980s was the heyday of the video store and it was one of my favorite places to go -- I had a video store membership and a way to get to the video store, what else could I want? I clearly remember all the time spent perusing the horror section, staring at the boxes, some subtle, some shocking. I rented as many of those movies as I could, and I like to think that I've seen most of the important horror films from that period. However, I'd never seen 1980's Mother's Day in its entirety. I did rent it -- I'm no slouch -- but I can clearly remember turning it off halfway through. Not because of the way in which the content was affecting me. No, because of the constant screaming in the film, I was afraid that, for once, my parents would come in and ask what I was watching. So, it wasn't until recently that I finally got to finish the film. I wasn't missing anything.

Following a gruesome pre-credit sequence, Mother's Day introduces us to Abby (Nancy Hendrickson), Jackie (Deborah Luce), and Trina (Tiana Pierce), three college sorority sisters. Every year, they reunite and go on an excursion together. This year, they have headed into the wilds of New Jersey (?!) to go camping. However, once they are nestled in their sleeping bags, they are attacked by Ike (Holden McGuire) and Addley (Billy Ray McQuade), who take the frightened women back to their dilapidated house in the woods. There, the women are bound, and the men use the women to put on shows for their demented Mother (Rose Ross), who is very critical of how these performances are staged. The women attempt to fight back, but despite the fact that they don’t seem very smart, Ike and Addley are crafty. Will the women be able to escape?

Over the years, Mother’s Day has been deemed as dubious for various reasons, but (ironically) the thing that it should be noteworthy for is how bizarre and pointless it is. As noted above, the film opens with a pre-credit sequence in which Mother attends a self-help seminar, befriends two people and drives them out into the country, only to have Ike and Addley kill them. This introduces the fact that the family is homicidal, but it doesn’t make much sense. Did Mother have to attend a lecture from a guru in order to find victims? That sounds like a lot of work. Following this, we get about 30 minutes of footage which focuses exclusively on Abby, Jackie, and Trina. All three are annoying and uninteresting. Once they are captured, we watch as Mother watches Ike and Addley perform bizarre skits with their victims. While these simulate rape and are certainly violent, they seem to be focused more on humiliation. The last act of the movie is concerned with the women getting revenge on their captors, leading to some of the movie’s most infamous moments.

Mother’s Day shows that even a lean-to shack can have a home gym on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 19 Mbps. The transfer doesn’t look bad given the age, obscurity and budget of this movie. For the most part, the picture is sharp and relatively clear. Some shots show defects from the source materials, such as white spots. Similarly, some shots are grainy. However, some of the daytime scenes in which the women are camping look crystal clear and show off good colors. The picture has some depth, which is unusual for a transfer like this. The Disc carries a Dolby Digital 2-channel audio track which runs at 48 kHz and a constant 224 kbps. (The box claims that the audio is Dolby TrueHD 5.1, but that track isn’t on this disc.) The audio provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The dialogue is also audible and never drowned out by the sound effects. The music does sound a bit tinny and shrill at times.

The Mother's Day Blu-ray Disc contains several extras. The film opens with a two-minute introduction from Director Charles Kaufman, who makes some comments about the movie and then tells us about the bakery he now runs. We get an AUDIO COMMENTARY with Kaufman and Assistant Art Director Rex Piano, which opens with a video introduction from Piano. "Super 8 Behind the Scenes of The Original Mother's Day" (10 minutes) is test footage for some of the special effects and stunts. This includes close-ups of something which is only glimpsed in the finale. This footage is accompanied by commentary from Kaufman. "Ike, Adley, and Eli: Eli Roth on the Subversive Political Subtext of Mother's Day" (13 minutes), which is called "Eli Roth's Mother's Day Commentary" has the over-rated director talking about his love for the movie, how it influenced his work, and the hidden meanings of the film. "Mother's Day at Comic-Con" (8 minutes) has Kaufman and remake director Darren Lynn Bousman talking about the movie, were Bousman basically interviews the Kaufamn, asking questions about the original film. The extras are rounded out by the ORIGINAL TRAILER for the movie.