“Why weren’t you at the Women’s Coalition meeting this afternoon?”

“Frankie didn’t want me to go. Said it was for dykes.”

It’s easy to write off Flesh Eating Mothers as yet another Troma-style crapfest, and on several levels, you’d be right to do so. It’s a low-budget, Tri-State-area-lensed splatterflick, packed to the gills with non-professional actors playing the sort of ugly, mean-spirited, and deeply retarded characters that populate most Troma films. And the premise itself – a venereal disease spread by a suburban lothario turns several housewives into insatiable cannibals – smacks of Troma’s self-parodying, “horror movies are stupid, aren’t they?” vibe, and is rife with their brand of dopey jokes (lots and lots of “What’s eating you?” type gags). But unlike Uncle Lloyd’s pictures, Flesh Eating Mothers doesn’t exhaust the viewer’s patience, due mostly to the fact that director/co-writer James Aviles Martin keeps things moving at a brisk pace, has a few decent actors in his cast (especially Neal Rosen as local “rotten kid” Rinaldi), and pours on the gore, including not one but two scenes of moms eating their pre-teen children. That he was able to pull off all this with a budget probably equal to or less than most Troma titles says something – either that Flesh Eating Mothers is a surprisingly enjoyable no-budget splatterfest, or my standards have dropped to an all time low. I’m gonna go with the former.

Many of the folks involved in the behind-the-scenes on Flesh Eating Mothers also had a hand in The Suckling, another unexpectedly likable New York-made indie horror (they also made Splatter University, but I won’t hold that against them); all three have been released on DVD by Elite, which seems to understand that there’s an audience for ‘80s direct-to-video horror who’s interested in seeing these films again. I sorta wish there was more of a showing extras-wise beyond a battered old trailer, but the 16x9 presentation (of a film blown up from 16mm) looks awfully good, so I really can’t ask for much more.
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- Paul Gaita