Someone in Hollywood must have had a really crappy childhood, because it seems that a lot of psycho mom movies have been released lately. It would be easy enough to name off a few to back up this statement but there's the problem, I never was interested enough to pay and see any of them.

Luckily for Hush, the newest murdering mom movie, and unluckily for me, I don't have to pay to see movies.

Renowned actress Jessica Lange stars in Hush as Martha, a jealous mother with a mysterious past and severe problems with good-byes.

The film begins with a visit from Martha's son Jackson (Johnathon Schaech, That Thing You Do) and his girlfriend Helen, (Gwyneth Paltrow, Great Expectations) the first girl he has ever brought to his family's sprawling horse farm.

The two women get off to a rough start when Martha brings her son breakfast in his room, only to find Helen naked in his bed. From that point on, each scene with the two characters contains an underlying tension, not too different from that between Jerry and Newman on Seinfeld.

In an obvious display of foreshadowing, Helen finds her diaphragm (surprisingly, this film is not set in 1954) exposed on a countertop after Martha has cleaned her room. Upon returning to their home in New York City, Helen discovers she is pregnant and quickly determines her diaphragm was damaged. Jackson and Helen decide to marry.

In New York, Helen is attacked in her apartment and the newlyweds decide that moving to the farm would be a good idea, even though everyone else in the film and everyone in the theater knows it isn't.

As the film progresses tension builds between Helen and Martha and Helen gradually learns of Martha's questionable past from Jackson's grandmother, who warns Helen to be careful of her new mother-in-law. Helen agrees with her as she learns Martha has been telling lies about her and her pregnancy.

The film climaxes with the birth of Helen's child at the horse farm while Jackson is away on business. As Helen suffers from the pain of childbirth, all of Martha's intentions are revealed.

Also involved obscurely in the plot are horse breeding, land development, "accidental" deaths, pregnancy issues, the caste system, biblical passages, those things you use to pull nails out of boards and (I think) time travel (or maybe race car driving). At one point Jackson makes a three-hour trip in 15 minutes at most.

There are a few things I like about Hush. The end isn't as cliched as I thought it would be. The cinematography is rather well done and actress Nina Foch is terrific as Jackson's grandmother. I also got a kick out of the subtle insane, fluttery look Jessica Lange gives after every line that is supposed to sound nice and sincere, but obviously isn't. There is also a solid amount of some cool "off-roading."

But the film also has its drawbacks. It is simply ludicrous to believe that Jackson would grow up well adjusted with such a nut for a mother. At no point in the film does he ever entertain his wife's concerns for herself or their child's safety. Nor does he realize that his mother probably ate paint chips as a little girl.

The birth of Helen's baby which serves as the film's climax is actually, pretty gross. She gives birth on a giant white bed, that becomes, how shall I put it delicately ... soiled. This film isn't a Titanic, such attention to detail isn't really necessary.

Hush falls into the genre of suspense/thriller. Now, I'm not saying that, the producers and handlers of this film are. They made it and presented it in such a way that audiences will watch the trailer and then say, "That looks like a suspenseful thriller."

This distinction is important because at no point Hush offers a suspenseful moment. Alfred Hitchcock would be furious that the genre he did so many wonderful things with, has been reduced with a film that would better qualify as an unfunny date flick.

Overall Hush exists in mediocrity. The acting is mediocre, the story is mediocre and the direction lacks, well, direction much of the time. A better bet than Hush would be to spend your five bucks at the video store on some classic Hitchcock.