When Imagination Becomes a Co-Star

Read Time:5 Minute, 45 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Mother, The Menacer, and Me
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Genre: Comedy, Horror, Family
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director(s): Jon Salmon
Writer(s): Chris Carvalho, Chris Plaushin
Cast: James Austin Kerr, Lorraine Bracco, Christine Spang, Leah Remini
Where to Watch: available digitally starting December 11, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: The line between imagination and responsibility is a battlefield. THE MOTHER, THE MENACER, AND ME uses that conflict as its whole foundation, following a dreamer who never figured out how to time his dreams with his real-world obligations. The premise sounds absurd on paper: a young father still believes he can mount a career on a single idea while his life unravels around him. The twist that makes the film work is that his passion isn’t a joke to him. Somewhere inside all the comedy, something honest keeps pushing up through the edges.

The film centers on Eddie Mathews, played with restlessness by James Austin Kerr. Eddie’s life is in a full-scale collapse: a baby due any minute, money gone, his last hope of stability is moving into the home of his sharp-tongued mother-in-law, Nancy. Lorraine Bracco plays Nancy with the precision of someone who knows how to flatten a man with a single sentence. It’s not a cruel performance (okay, maybe a little), but it doesn’t need cruelty to sting. Nancy has opinions about everything Eddie does, especially the unstable idea that he’s one film festival win away from a career.

Eddie’s creative outlet is a pilot called KILLING KARENS, a small DIY horror riff starring the Menacer—a masked vigilante who punishes the world’s most entitled offenders. It’s both silly and a reflection of the internet era’s relationship to rage culture. The Menacer is Eddie’s imaginary collaborator, half-filled intensity, half bargain-bin slasher mascot. The conceit gives the film its hook, but the writers never treat the hallucination like a cheap visual gag. The Menacer is a psychological projection of Eddie’s creative bravado—he’s the version of Eddie that never doubts himself.

Kristine Spang grounds everything as Anna, Eddie’s wife, playing a woman who reached her emotional exhaustion twelve arguments ago. She’s not written as a cliché of a supportive partner or someone who exists only to scold. She’s caught between worry for her family and resentment toward Eddie for refusing to see how much he’s risking. There’s a constant tug-of-war in her eyes: she wants to believe in him, but she needs someone who pays rent and stays awake during real conversations.

The film isn’t traditional horror, despite the masked killer and occasional blood. It’s a family comedy filtered through horror vocabulary—using genre to heighten what is ultimately a story about midlife panic and ambition. Jon Salmon directs the film with a playful tone, letting the low-budget film-within-the-film moments feel authentic without turning them into ridicule. There are jokes about Eddie, selling the family van, and even donating blood to raise funds. The escalation never feels like cruelty toward Eddie—it’s a portrait of tunnel vision.

Bracco plays Nancy as someone who once had dreams of her own and buried them long ago. That tension matters. She’s not mocking Eddie because she hates him. She’s watching a younger version of herself and trying to rip those hopes out before they grow roots. Bracco finds humanity beneath the sarcasm, especially in key exchanges where she lets her guard down. There’s a hard-earned sadness beneath the insults: Nancy already lived the consequences Eddie is walking into.

Leah Remini’s character, Karen Brazo Fuerte, is a fading Hollywood “mogul” with the swagger of someone who never updated her sense of fame. Remini leans into the exaggeration without losing the human core. Karen is part hype artist, part cautionary tale for anyone who ever believed the right room could change everything. She becomes Eddie’s catalyst, promising something big if he just goes bigger. The entire crew seems to be having fun with her presence, and it shows onscreen.

Two parallel stories are happening at once: the absurd journey of finishing a project no one asked for, and the quieter question of whether Eddie can be a father and a dreamer at the same time. Those paths crash into each other, giving the third act a surprisingly sincere payoff—the emotion lands without sentimentality. The humor never disappears, but the film finds something real under the jokes.

THE MOTHER, THE MENACER, AND ME works because of its sincerity. It embraces genre tropes without parodying the filmmaker at its center. Eddie is ridiculous, but the film never laughs at him. Everybody with big ambitions has a version of the Menacer whispering encouragement, telling them they’re one moment away from proving everyone wrong. Most people silence that voice. This movie asks what happens when you don’t. That question is handled with warmth. The comedy gets the attention, but the family dynamic is what people will remember. The film keeps its pacing light, lets the humor play, and still recognizes the gravity of someone risking his future on a dream that might never come true.

The result is an entertaining, heartfelt story that treats creative obsession as both a gift and a burden. It’s funny, chaotic, occasionally surreal, and ultimately hopeful about what happens when someone refuses to abandon the thing that makes them feel alive.

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[photo courtesy of GHOST TO THE POST PRODUCTIONS, PERSIMMON]

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