Mother's Day(2010)
2010 · Darren Lynn Bousman · 112 min
Crazed members of a sadistic family return to their childhood home to terrorize the new owners.
Crime · Horror · Thriller
6.5478 votes
TMDB score
5/5
Intensity
4/5
Gore
4/5
Stays with you
How Mother's Day scares
You feel trapped and tense almost the whole time, like there's no safe moment to breathe. The movie builds slowly through mounting dread and control games before tipping into sustained, brutal violence, so it earns its scares through helplessness rather than jump scares. The threat here is entirely human — a twisted family holding people hostage in their own home — with no ghosts or monsters to hide behind. It's heavy and mean-spirited rather than fun, more likely to leave you rattled than entertained.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Mother's Day rates psychological 3/5, visceral 5/5, gore 4/5, lingering effect 4/5, and overall intensity 5/5.
- Psychological: 3 of 5
- Visceral: 5 of 5
- Gore: 4 of 5
- Lingering: 4 of 5
- Intensity: 5 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 25 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 95 of 100 — leans Real-world
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 75 of 100 — leans Disturbing
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A tense home-invasion setup that keeps tightening its grip, building into a brutal, punishing back half with barely any relief.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4.
How scary is Mother's Day?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, Mother's Day rates 5/5 — one of the more punishing watches in the catalog, building its fear through slow-burn dread rather than shocks. It attacks the body more than the mind — physical, in-your-face horror. Expect it to be heavy on gore and genuinely disturbing. Expect it to stay with you for days.
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