Mother — Mother( DVD)

Mother is an early 2000’s re-telling of the Ed Gein case. It’s a terminally grim affair, filmed in stark black & white, with little or no dialogue- just searing-to-unwell scoring, and macabre-to-eerier sound effects. Here from the great folks at SRS Cinema is a DVD release of the film- with a commentary track, making of, and a few other things.

From the year 2006 Mother was directed & written by Michael DiPaolo, who over a fifteen-year period filmed over 2000 confessions of murders for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. We’ve now reviewed a few of Mr DiPaolo films on M[m]- the wonderful ghoulish and bleak zombie film Daddy (2003), and kinky/ arty serial killer film Transgression(1994). Since 1986 DiPaolo has helmed twelve feature-length films- these take in the likes of 1987’s Where No Sun Shines, whose tag line was ‘the whores, hustlers & homeless up close and personal’, and more recently 2011’s I Don’t Wanna Feel Nothing No More, which chronicled three generations of incest.

The film opens in a decidedly lopsided to disorientating manner- as we get a tilted shot of stark wooden house set against grey skies. We move inside to a shadowy and disarranged bedroom, where a woman is screaming- and it’s unclear if she’s in pain or pleasure. As we move forward, we get a few jumps in time, and where we meet our lead character Son (John Karyus) a tubby and balding man, who lives in the rundown and grey house with his ageing and overweight mother (Nina Sobell), his brother and father. In more jump forwards we see the father has died with an open casket in the front room, and fairly soon after the brother dies. And this leaves the son to get closer, and creeper towards his domineering mother.

As things move on, she also passes, and this is when the son really starts to go off the rails- with the help of a friend he digs up a body and starts crafting items for around the house from the body. We have bodies sawn up and limbs dropping, the son dressing up as mother, more visits to the graveyard, ornaments made from lady bits, and skin suit making.

The film runs one hour and fifteen minutes mark, and surprising for a largely dialogue-less it rolls by well enough- there is a great use of ghoulish and eerier sound effects. As well as a score mixing sawing string discord, glum wordless choirs, and later gabbled sing-song drifts. The whole film is often captured in an odd angled and tilted manner, and this with the grim shot choice- be it muddy to snow sprinkled rural landscape, or hazed moonlight through dead trees, really pulls you along. The acting is largely fairly good- with Karyus as the son moving between creepy and sleazed, to deranged and largely quietly unhinged. All in all, Mother is certainly a grimly effective, and at times very troubling slice of serial killer horror- with DiPaolo using his clearly very small budget extremely well.

Moving onto this recent region free DVD release- and we get a good selection of extras. First off, we get a commentary track from Michael DiPaolo, and as with the other tracks I’ve heard from him it’s a very down to earth, informative, and wholly interesting director’s track. He begins by talking about the use of camera in the film and how he wanted to give an internal space feel. He talks about how he based the film's look on newsreel footage of Gein, the use of fluids in the film, and why they decide to have no dialogue in the film. He mentions the use of Gein’s mother's favourite biblical quote, and the 17th-century main house location in the picture. He discusses the difficulties of trying to make a period film on a budget of just $6’000, and who did its score. He tells us that the house had not been occupied since the 1940s, and talks about the cast/ what they do in normal life. Later on, he chats about trying to give the film a 1930s montage feel, and other film locations. He talks about props and improvising things on set- and apparently the dried ladies' bits were dried pears. He discusses the claustrophobic skin suit trying on scene, and the general very cold/ damp weather they had when filming, And much more- a must-play track really. Otherwise, we get a twelve and a half making of, director trailer reel, and SRS trailer reel.

Finally, on the disc, there’s Brutal Ardor- which was the first thing DiPaolo made. It dates from 1986 and runs at the forty-six-minute mark- which is halfway between a short and feature-length. The film is an arty, at points bleak relationship drama- which focuses on The Wife (Harriet Hendlin) and The Husband (Eugene Hall). The pair live in an apartment with the NYC skyline off in the distance. The film's story flow jumps around somewhat- as we get both early relationship happiness, blending with raised voices agreements, him hitting her, and the empty darkened apartment full of pained screams. Much of the film is voiced over in a diary/ conversational type manner by the wife- and this moves between the philosophical, loving, to concerned. The film has a score that mixes female choir, hoovering string work, and sudden jarring noise elements blended with the screams. All in all, it’s interesting to see this early work from DiPaolo- and it’s fairly fully formed in its idea/ themes, which would appear in his later work. The pacing is somewhat off in places, and the darting about time frames structure of the film does feel a little frustrating at times- but as a first film, Brutal Ardor is quite impressive and well worth a look if you are familiar with DiPaolo's output in the ’80s/’90s.

Over the years there have been more than a few attempts at telling the Ed Gein story, and while Mother is not completely accurate it’s a very troubling and unnerving take on the case- which I’d say is one of the best stabs at the Gein’s troubled mind and what he did since the ’70s grindhouse days. So very much recommended if you enjoy ghoulish and extremely stark serial killer fare.