• How is this not a Troma film?

Flesh Eating Moms directed by: James Martin. Starring: Robert Lee Oliver, Donatella Hecht, Neal Rosen, Valorie Hubbard and Marie Michaels.
Year of release: 1988
Runtime : 88 min / 1.85:1

Pardon my French but “these b*tches is crazy”. What the hell did I just watch? 90 minutes of lucid insanity and I needed it. Please just take me back to the eighties and the nineties, please. Take me back to the BMX ramps in the cul-de-sac, the yellow school bus with the nicotine stenched driver. The Pizzeria run by a guy named Sal next door the breakfast diner that served beer after 7pm. The shitty box television set with the knobs and the furniture with the plastic coverings. The Late, Late Movie on channel 7, frozen orange juice in the freezer, the leaves of autumn, the imaginary Leave It To Beaver music that played in your head on the way to school, the rotary phone with the two foot cord, walkie-talkies, lazer-tag, Saturday mornings, 25cent juices, the girl next door, the creepy van that was always parked down by the river, the haunted house on the corner, the sketchy guy at the park, the Ice Cream man with the sailor tattoos, stranger danger, DARE, the danger of razors in the candy, the rocks that addicts smoked, “No-that wasn’t candy”, MSG, the OTB, phone phreakers, NYNEX, book reports, BOOKS, Nintendo, VHS, A Current Affair, Unsolved Mysteries, the Cold War and the threat of impending doom with every slice of pizza & fruit punch. I was lucky enough to find this on youtube while researching conspiracy threads and documentaries online; there I was taking a break from learning about the Sabbateans and I noticed this title pop-up in my feed (no connection).

• PLOT
  Somewhere in some corner of New Jersey, the mothers have come down with a sickness and have turned into savage cannibalistic fiends. Nothing is off the menu when these hotwives go feral and start ripping into their neighbors and loved ones. The kids are stoned and freaked out trying to get to the bottom of the madness. The chief of police knows more than he says. The local medical examiner is barely over five feet tall and even he smells something is fishy going on.
  

This film was shot on a shoe string budget and enough imagination, humor and not-a-care in the world attitude to make this something special. I’ve already watched this film twice and still laugh my balls off. All shot on location in west bumblef*k.

• “It’s so damn bad it’s great. How is this not a Troma film.”

The limited budget was obviously focused on what special fx they could put together and “YES” the gore is here; almost reminiscent of early Peter Jackson type body horror courtesy of special effects artist Carl Sorensen (Child’s Play, Tremors). There is so much red stuff dripping here you could stock a Nathan’s Hot Dog stand and film an entire MaxiPad marketing campaign. The script is witty, tongue-in-cheek and crass. The cannibal virus itself has a nice original plot twist to it.
The acting? The acting is pure public-access meets Loyd Kaufman shot on film and smeared together inside the frame of an episodes of MONSTERS. I can’t say I recognize any of these actors aside from Marie Micheals who was one of the mob wives in Goodfellas and Donatella Hecht (The Manhattan Project 1986). I LOVE THIS. This is why I review these forgotten gems of analog entertainment when life was simpler, less sanitized and fun. Gen X wasn’t just an era it was a friggin attitude and I was fortunate enough to slide down the tail-end of that generation into the birth of the millennial before everything just became cookie cutter and redundant.

Flesh Eating Mothers is also available in Blu-ray format from Vinegar Syndrome presents, freshly restored in 2K and featuring a new batch of exclusive extra features.

You been fluffed enough now. So click the link below and watch with some friends and some pizza rolls, soda pop, whatever the hell you smoke and your significant others Hot Pockets. Just remember to take it easy, be dangerous, be cool, keep your finger on that Rewind Button and Yippee-ki-yay and F the Law.