Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)

Simply A Masterpiece

Best movie ever!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Momma's boy Ed Chilton (Steve Buscemi) has been mourning his dead mother (Miriam Margolyes) for a year. He lives with his maternal uncle Benny (Ned Beatty) and inherited her hardware store. A. J. Pattle (John Glover) from "Happy People Ltd." offers to resurrect his mother for $1000. Pattle finds the body in pieces after organ donations and the price is raised to $2500. His mother returns but she becomes more and more odd. Benny is a peeping Tom who spies on hot neighbor Storm Reynolds but she's interested in the weird Ed. Rob Sundheimer returns into their lives. He was put in prison for stealing from Ed's mother but has been released early.I like the concept. It has good potential for a black comedy especially with Steve Buscemi at the lead. However the script from Chuck Hughes has no snap and the directions from Jonathan Wacks has no style. The promise is never fulfilled.

I recall seeing ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER (1993) on cable several times back in the mid-90s. For some reason, I really latched onto this movie and part of it has always stayed with me. I couldn't believe how absurd and outrageous the humor was in this when I first saw it. It literally plays death as a kind of sick joke.The always-reliable Steve Buscemi has an early, rare starring role as one of the titular characters Ed. Buscemi's style of humor works to great effect in this movie, but unlike in many of his later supporting roles in films, Buscemi's Ed is really a purely good guy with no real shades of gray. He lives a simple life, running the family hardware store, lives like a monk with his oddball uncle (hilariously played by Ned Beatty).The absurd plot of the story is that Ed's mother has recently died and a salesmen offers to revive Mom (played with dark, scary, glee by British actress Miriam Margoyles) for a small price. I remember being absolutely terrified of Ed's Mom when I first saw this movie! She was literally the walking dead, a kind of human zombie who effortlessly and nonchalantly slept in the fridge, chased down dogs with lawnmowers, and violently stabbed people! The way Buscemi and Beatty reacted to her shenanigans was spot on hilarious! Another HUGE bonus in this movie is the presence of the incredibly hot Sam Jenkins, who plays a new neighbor lady that falls for Ed while she's investigating the goings-on at his house. Jenkins was an all-natural brunette beauty in a time before all this crazy plastic surgery that actresses go through! Her incredible body is featured without fail several times in the movie, but it never comes across as sleazy or cheap, just part of the uninhibited nature of this film! The movie has an unapologetic morbid tone throughout and the moments are laugh-out loud funny. Dark comedies nowadays tend to try for oddball to the point of being disgusting or too self-conscious. But this is definitely not true of Ed and His Dead Mother!

Good one-liners and great deadpan performances by Steve Buscemi and Ned Beatty highlight this irreverent romantic comedy about death and hardware...? If you can find this little off-beat gem to watch, you shouldn't be disappointed.

I don't know why, but I liked this movie. It's one of Steve Buscemi's few leading roles in a movie and I like him as an actor, but my enjoyment of this film went beyond that. I've only seen it on TV a few times (was this ever actually released in theaters?) but I enjoyed it. It has a quirky humor to it and a rather odd storyline. If you ever see this on TV on a Sunday afternoon, watch it.