Ed Chilton (Steve Buscemi) is a hardware store owner / operator still mourning the death of his mother Mabel (Miriam Margolyes) one year later. Therefore he is easy prey for a smarmy, super slick salesman, A.J. Pattle (John Glover), who's hawking the reanimation of the deceased. Ed soon agrees, and after some setbacks and price haggling, Mabel is brought by Pattle to Eds' doorstep. Naturally, as Ed and his uncle Benny (Ned Beatty) quickly realize, she's not the woman she used to be. For one thing, her new diet should come as a shock to no-one."Ed and His Dead Mother" is a pretty predictable black comedy, with no real inspired moments or fireworks. That said, it's still easy enough to take, and enjoy, but that itself may pose a problem for some viewers: it's NOT all that dark, or insane. One might think of it as a much milder version of Peter Jacksons' "Braindead", minus the over the top gore. What makes it as entertaining as it is is this excellent cast of familiar faces. Buscemi is endearing in the lead, the often priceless Glover is a hoot as usual, Beatty is quite funny (his character is a shameless, horny voyeur), and the under rated Margolyes has fun as the re-animated mother. The supporting cast can boast a couple of other recognizable people: Eric Christmas as a defense attorney, Gary Farmer as hardware store employee "Big Lar", Jon Gries as an ex- convict, and Rance Howard (very funny himself) as a crazed reverend. Sam Jenkins (a.k.a. Mrs. Kevin Sorbo) offers up lots of sex appeal as a new neighbor. Dawn Hudson, who has a bit as a telemarketer, became Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences years later.The movie is decently directed by Jonathan Wacks, who'd produced the cult classic "Repo Man" about a decade previous, and whose other directorial credits include "Powwow Highway" and "Mystery Date". It's also noteworthy for its stylistic choice of black & white wrap around segments, and Mason Darings' fine score."Ed and His Dead Mother" isn't anything great, but it does offer some fun for a well paced 91 minutes.Six out of 10.

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!

A man has a hard time coming to grips with his mother's death, so he hires a company to bring her back to life. She has to eat living things in order to remain alive, mostly dogs and roaches; the bigger the meal the more life. she overdoses on life and becomes a crazed killer. If you see this movie in any video store, rent it or buy it. Besides the undead mother, other funny things about this movie include Ed's perverted uncle, who always watches the neighbors through a telescope, and tries to listen in to Ed having sex, the one time he does get lucky, "Maybe i can hide in the kitchen and scream out positions to you in case you get stuck on what to do next." Also, there are funny conversations about the process of bringing the mother back to life: "You didn't tell me your mom was an organ doner, ED, if we put her back together the way she is, she'll be good for slobbering and watching Married with Children...."Do you know how hard it is to find parts for a two legged, 1954 caucasian female, Ed?" It is well worth it, and very hard to find. I don't know how this movie has been forgotten.In fact, my last physical fight was in college, over somebody trying to steal my copy of this movie. It is that good.

Steve Buscemi is not a name I associate with quality films, but I watched this anyway out of morbid curiousity. As it turned out, I was being too optimistic. Not only does it rip the premise from Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" (Watch both movies & tell me I'm wrong), but it's a horror-comedy with neither horror nor comedy... discuss amongst yourselves.