Epitaph

It'd be easy to call Epitaph cheap or dumb or a waste of time, but this movie has a story to tell and it's proud and eager to tell it.

There's clearly not a lot of money the filmmakers were working with here. It's shot on video, it has 3 locations, and the actors all seem plucked out of community theatre obscurity, but the script itself isn't as bad as one might think and has a good time playing with audience expectations.

A family moves to a new town and the matriarch begins committing murders. Instead of shock, most family members react with a "not again" which means that I guess ol' mom has been killing people everywhere she goes. The only one who seems truly bothered by this is the teenage daughter, because how embarrassing is it to not only be the new girl in school, but to have a homicidal mother as well.

As the story progresses, Mom takes care of anyone who gets in her way to starts to suspect her nefarious plans. She'll use anything from an electric kitchen knife to a shotgun to a rat placed in a can and attached to a victim's stomach as she blowtorches it, making the rat eat through the victim's stomach. Yep. That one is a highlight.

Despite budget limitations, Epitaph isn't bad at all and I can promise you that if this script had been bought by a big studio and given to someone like Jessica Lange or Meryl Streep to play, people would love it. Look past the low budget and you'll find a pretty good movie.