MOTHER’S DAY (18, 112 mins) ***
Starring Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King, Patrick Flueger, Warren Kole, Deborah Ann Woll, Matt O’Leary, Frank Grillo, Shawn Ashmore, Briana Evigan, Lyriq Bent, Kandyse McClure, Tony Nappo, Lisa Marcos. Director: Darren Lynn Bousman.

Actions speak louder than words – and there are some jaw-dropping actions in this stomach-churning remake of Charles Kaufman’s low-budget 1980 trash horror of the same name.

A shotgun blast causes one female protagonist’s head to explode into the camera while a male character is tortured with the contents of a boiling kettle.

The pawns in this grubby game of survival are a thoroughly unlikeable menagerie of well-to-do suburbanites and wayward criminals.

By the time the end credits roll, more than half of the cast are heading for the mortuary slab and the victims are painted in similarly dark, unflattering colours as the supposed villains of the piece.

Director Bousman, who previously made three instalments of the Saw franchise, slathers Mother’s Day with similar amounts of blood and entrails, and delights in the degradation of the characters.

The nastiness is accomplished with considerable flair, but audiences will need several sugary drinks from the concessions stand to blot the nasty taste left by the relentless carnage.

Ike Koffin (Flueger) and his brothers Addley (Kole) and Johnny (O’Leary) bungle a bank heist and head for their childhood home, which they intend to use as a hideaway from the cops.

However, the Koffin boys are unaware that their mother has lost their house, and young couple Daniel (Grillo) and Beth Sohapi (King) have snapped up the property in a foreclosure sale.

The robbers burst into the house during a party thrown by the Sohapis and take everyone hostage including Treshawn (Bent) and his wife Gina (McClure) and mutual friend Annette (Evigan).

Soon after, matriarch Natalie Koffin (De Mornay) arrives with her daughter Lydia (Woll) in tow and it’s clear that momma is running the show.

“What I want is to leave you in peace,” Natalie tells the Sohapis, instructing Beth’s friend George (Ashmore), who is a doctor, to tend to her injured son Johnny.

“If you hurt my friends, I’m going to let your baby boy die in front of you,” he retorts.

Mother’s Day doesn’t pull any punches within the claustrophobic confines of the Sohapi’s new home, which becomes their blood-stained prison.

De Mornay is deliciously unhinged as the criminal mastermind with a twisted sense of right and wrong.

At 112 minutes, the film would benefit from editing and the shock coda is telegraphed in advance, but for horror fans, Mother’s Day delivers a surfeit of repulsion and violent retribution.