The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 23: Ed and His Dead Mother
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.23.2006
And you thought your relationship with your mother was complicated...
ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER (1993)
Directed by: Jonathan Wacks Written by: Chuck Hughes Country: USA
It's always a little frightening to revisit the things you once found funny in your youth. Not only is it a disappointing experience, but in the worse case scenarios it forces you to confront just how dumb you were as a kid. For instance, I loved shows like Alf and Dinosaurs in my pre-teen years, but recent attempts at watching have suggested that either my sense of humor simply hadn't developed to its proper level yet at the time, or I had been suffering from mid-level brain damage.
So it was quite some apprehension that I approached my recent viewing of the 1993 zombie-comedy Ed and His Dead Mother, a film I remember constantly watching, and loving, on cable back in the day. Not only was it questionable was it questionable whether it was ever really funny in the first place, or if I just didn't know any better back then, but now I would also be looking at it with the added weight of having since seen some truly great zombie-comedies, like Shaun of the Dead and My Boyfriend's Back. Could it possibly hold up?
Thankfully, yes. I'm happy to report that Ed and His Dead Mother's twisted humor is just as much outrageous fun as I remember it being. In fact, much like the equally underappreciated My Boyfriend's Back, I can't help but wonder why this one doesn't have a larger following.
Steve Buscemi stars as Ed Chilton, an extreme mama's boy who is finding it impossible to get over the death of his beloved mother, even though it's been a full year since she passed. Despite the constant advice to move on with his life from his perverted Uncle Benny, played by the eternally-underrated Ned Beatty, Ed just can't seem to shake her memory, nor does he really want to. Heck, he's such a lost cause that he won't even give in to the demand to stock a more modern type of lawn mower in the family hardware store he now runs, because push mowers were always good enough for mother.
And then, one day, Ed's prayers seem to be answered when a man named A.J. Pattle (John Glover) approaches him, representing a company known as the Happy People Corporation. Pattle seems to know an awful lot about Ed's predicament, and informs him that he is in luck, since Happy People's very business is the selling of "life" (and I just dare you to get the hilarious Happy People jingle out of your head after seeing the film). That's right, for the small fee of $3000, Pattle can bring Ed's mom back, good as new. Although initially skeptical, Ed agrees after Pattle promises, in true traveling-salesman "shit-eating-grin" fashion, that Ed will not be charged until after his mom is back home and everything is back to normal.
It doesn't take very long for complications to arise, however, as Pattle informs Ed that due to Ed's mother being chopped up as an organ donor after death, the re-animation process will be much harder and will require even more of Ed's money (as Pattle puts it: "if we bring her back like this, she'll be good for slobbering and watching Married with Children, and that's about it"). Ed reluctantly coughs up the additional fee, and later that night is reunited with his loving mother, who seems none the worse for wear from her year in the ground.
But, not surprisingly, the seemingly restored normality doesn't last long, as Ed awakes the very next morning to discover his mother cheerfully sitting in the refrigerator, much to the confusion of Uncle Benny. Benny makes his feelings quite clear, informing Ed that bringing his mother back just isn't right. Ed is so happy to have mother back, however, that he decides to ignore both Benny's concerns and his mother's new "quirks." But when mother collapses, Ed is forced to pay Pattle even more money to receive the secret behind keeping her new lease on life going, which consists of feeding her a steady supply of cockroaches, so that she can absorb their "life" and make it her own.
This is all a bit much for Ed, but she is his mother, after all, and so he grudgingly goes along with the new routine. Unfortunately, things begin to spin wildly out of control after mother ingests too many of the bugs at once and "overdoses" on life. It isn't long before mother, no longer content with just bugs, is looking for her next snack by chasing dogs down the street. And once her appetites turn more towards the human side of the food chain, Ed is finally forced to decide whether or not his love for mother outweighs the moral conundrum of housing a crazed cannibal.
If all this sounds a little familiar, don't be surprised. A number of fans and critic alike have described Ed and His Mother as a tame version of Peter Jackson's insanely over-the-top gore-fest Dead Alive - a very tame version, in fact, since Ed is only rated PG-13. Don't let that keep you away, however. While the basic ideas of the two films are the same – a young man's life is made a living hell by the resurrection of his overbearing mother – Ed takes a very different approach, getting by on genuinely witty lines and a few excellent performances rather than copious amounts of bloodshed.
Buscemi is perfect as Ed, which isn't surprising considering it's the kind of twitchy, nerdy role he has spent years perfecting. Most of the film's big laughs belong to Ned Beatty, whose Uncle Benny reacts to the unwanted return of his deceased sister with flustered resignation. John Glover is tremendous as the slick life-peddling huckster who manages to remain likeable even as he bilks Ed out of all his money. And character actors Rance Howard (father of Ron and Clint) and Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Gries both manage to nearly steal the movie with a couple of smaller roles – Gries as a parolee, originally sent to jail after Ed's mother testified against him for stealing, who picks the wrong night to come looking for revenge, and Howard as an old reverend who keeps politely making inquiries at the hardware store about the best kinds of saws and bear-traps to use against his "cheating whore of a wife."
It's not all perfect, unfortunately. Some of the jokes do fall flat, and a couple of the main performances don't really live up to the high standards set by the rest of the cast. As Ed's mother, Miriam Margoyles can be a little too ridiculous at times, making some of her scenes more annoying than funny. And the beautiful Sam Jenkins is pretty much wasted in the token love interest role, as a sexy neighbor who comes on to Ed, only to later admit she was originally hired by Happy People to seduce Ed and spy on his mother's progress (on a side note: how exactly is Happy People making a profit on Ed if they are also apparently paying for the house across the street for Jenkins to live in?). The fact that her character is the film's weakest element isn't really Jenkin's fault, mind you; her part isn't really all that developed past "sexy neighbor who flirts with Ed," and seems to exist solely to throw some brief nudity into the movie.
Wait a minute! Nudity? In a PG-13 film? That's right, folks. You just know I have to recommend the movie now, since anytime a PG-13 film offers up a glimpse of boobs, you have to reward it somehow. Sure, Ed and his Dead Mother is a well-done, darkly-funny tale of being careful what you wish for…but I think I just realized the real reason I loved this movie when I was 13.
The 411: Like the equally underappreciated My Boyfriend's Back, Ed and His Dead Mother draws much of its pitch black humor from placing the insane concepts of a zombie film smack dab in the middle of an idyllic American small town. It's pretty tough to attempt a zombie-comedy without the humor going at least a little on the dark side, but the tone here is particularly twisted. So anyone who doesn't find the idea of a sweet old lady interrupting a pleasant tea-time with a chainsaw attack, or attempting to mow down victims with a riding lawn-mower, might not want to bother. For anyone with a demented sense of humor, however, Ed and His Dead Mother is a true undiscovered gem.
