Ah mothers, the loving foundation of any family. But what if they loved you so much they could just eat ya? I mean literally eat you, consume your flesh, nibble on your eyeball. You know that sort of thing. That is the premise of this 1988 gore comedy aptly titled Flesh Eating Mothers.
The premise of this movie is simple and with a lot of potential. Essentially the local cheating horndog of the neighborhood gets a VD that turns women into cannibals. The mothers gets insatiable appetite and suddenly start to look at their kids with hungry eyes.
A premise like this is prime for bad mother jokes, childish gore and a generally wild ride. Flesh Eating Mothers really tries to achieve these things. But sadly the jokes fall flat, the gore gets blueballed by ethics (of course you can and should show a mother tenderly eat their infant).
With that said there are some good scenes and some good old awkwardly funny interactions with the characters. I’ve read excuses telling me that this movie was made in the eighties and thus had restraints. The 80s gave us Cannibal Holocaust, Bad Taste and Evil Dead so restraints are kinda out of the picture.
Would I recommend this? As a popcorn flick to show before the main event of your movie night sure! But it does not hold its own as a good gore experience, it has too many missed mom joke opportunities and generally misses the mark. Now I am off to find a film that actually dares to make horrible mom jokes and gross me out for real!
