The Quick 10: 10 Mean Moms

It's almost Mother's Day, so of course everyone is talking about how great their moms are and what fabulous thing they can do to honor their moms. So I thought it would be a nice change of pace to talk about some notoriously crappy moms "“ mostly fictional, with two notable exceptions. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

2. Norma Bates, Norman Bates' mother. After her husband died, Norma raised her son by herself and raised him to believe that women were evil and slutty, unless they were mothers. The two of them became totally wrapped up in their own little world together until Norma met a guy and decided to remarry; Norman gets so jealous that he ends up killing them both and making it look like a suicide. Obviously he was a little warped after that and started wearing his mother's clothes and sharing half of his brain with her persona, but it's really Mrs. Bates' own fault. After all, a boy's best friend is his mother.

3. Pamela Voorhees, Jason Voorhees' mother. All of the best horror movie villains have mommy issues, don't they? Pamela was only 15 when she got pregnant with our favorite hockey masked murderer, and he apparently had water on the brain which caused some deformities. Not wanting him to be made fun of at school, she kept him at home to herself. She took a job at Camp Crystal Lake and brought Jason with her; he wandered into the lake one night to prove he could swim like the other kids could and "drowned." Pam was angry and blamed the counselors and killed a couple of them to exact her revenge, causing the camp to close. It reopened, so she poisoned the water and set some fires, leading to another closing. It reopens again and she kills seven more counselors. She finally meets her match and is decapitated by a particularly feisty counselor, but Jason, who has been alive the whole time, preserves her head and her body and makes a shrine to it. Good parenting, there.

5. Mel Jones, Coraline's mom. Well, Coraline's mom isn't that bad. She's just a little preoccupied and doesn't pay as much attention to her daughter as she should. It's Coraline's mother in an alternate universe "“ her Other Mother "“ that inspires nightmares. She seems like she's all butterflies and light, but that ends when she tells Coraline that she has to sew buttons over her eyes if she wants to continue living in the fun Other world. This is not what the Other Mother wanted to hear and she kind of loses it. Turns out she was responsible for the disappearance of at least three kids over the years; she kept them in her Other world and then locked them in a closet and let them starve to death when she got bored with them. That's a pretty mean mommy, indeed.

6. Olivia Foxworth and Corinne Dollanganger from Flowers in the Attic. This mother-daughter duo conspired to keep four children "“ Corinne's kids "“ locked in an attic for years. Olivia is played by Louise Fletcher, the lady who played Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, so you can imagine what a baddie the character is. Corinne has to hide her children because her father is on his deathbed and she won't receive her vast inheritance if he learns that she had children (she married her half-brother and her dad was kind of mad about that. Go figure), and her mother, Olivia, is all-too happy to help. It seems for a while that Olivia is the really rotten one "“ she starves them, pours hot tar on the eldest granddaughter's head because she feared her pretty blonde hair was making her too vain, and kicks the youngest child (among other things). But we learn that Corinne is the one who has been slowly poisoning her children by sprinkling arsenic in with the powdered sugar that tops the cookies they start mysteriously receiving. Yep, pretty sure that poisoning your children so you get to keep your inheritance lands you on the "Worst Moms Ever" list.

9. Joan Crawford is where we get to our exceptions I mentioned above. While Joan Crawford was a real person, obviously, the Joan Crawford depicted in Mommie Dearest may or may not have been exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. Christina Crawford would tell you it wasn't exaggerated at all, but some of Joan's other children and her friends say her temper has been embellished. Nonetheless, the Joan we see in the movie is ruthless and crazy, giving Christina's birthday toys away, chopping off her hair when she sees her wearing makeup, and beats her mercilessly with wire hangers.

10. Wanda Holloway, the alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. Another real lady, this time portrayed in a made-for-TV movie starring Holly Hunter and Beau Bridges. In 1991, this woman from Channelview, Texas, had her brother-in-law hire a hitman to kill the mother of a girl competing for a spot on the cheerleading squad with her daughter. She figured that the girl would be so upset she wouldn't try out for the squad and her daughter would get the open position. The girls were 13 years old at the time.

What bad moms did I miss? I know there are lots of them out there "“ horror movies seem to teem with terrible parents. Share them in the comments!