When mother dearest is not so perfect...

Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford

But, what if our mothers were not so perfect? What if they were 'Medusa reincarnated'?

In certain movies the mother figures have been portrayed in ways that might make even the devil cringe in terror, or give a certain Gabbar Singh a run for the money.

Mommie Dearest is one such movie. This mother of all 'mean mother' movies shocked the living daylights out of every movie fan, specifically those who were smitten with the legendary Hollywood diva from the golden years, Joan Crawford, when it came out in 1981.

When Joan Crawford passed away in 1977, her adopted daughter Christina Crawford penned a tell-all autobiography called Mommie Dearest and the movie was based on the brutal accounts by Christina on how Joan sadistically used to abuse her, yet always emphatically asked to be addressed as "mommie dearest".

The story starts with an obsessive-compulsive Joan, at the zenith of her film career in the 1940s, craving to experience motherhood. After much grappling with the adoption agencies, as she is an unmarried actress, she is able to adopt a baby girl. However, she also eyes this as a scope of publicity.

Years after, as Joan's beauty starts to wane, just like her popularity as an actress; she is labeled as "box office poison" by the production house, MGM. Her fading career and failed romances drive Joan to the verge of mental disorders and her daughter, Christina becomes the innocent scapegoat of her tantrums and savage punishments.

At the pool when an exhausted little Christina cannot keep up with Joan and complains, she remarks, "No one ever said the world was fair, Christina. I'm bigger and stronger than you and I'll always beat you." Then she locks up Christina in the pool-house for defying her.

At lunch and dinner, Christina is forced to stare at a bloody piece of uncooked steak, with no other choices given.

A startled Christina is awakened by an eerie looking Joan with a gaudy beauty mask on her face, in the wee hours of night and beaten mercilessly with a wire hanger, for apparently ruining the clothes by using those. The most repeatable line from the film is delivered, "No more wire hangers ever!"

A dazed and heartbroken Christina once asks her mother, "Did you ever really love me?"

The last and most effective heartless prank is pulled by Joan, as Christina and her adoptive brother, Christopher discover after their mother's death that they had been left out of her will.

Although the movie was meant to be serious, director Frank Perry's very campy approach made the film a source of loud laughter and it remains so to this date.

Actress Faye Dunaway has Joan down to the last note, so much so that it's uncanny and chilling.

This movie is sure to make the viewers appreciate their ever-loving and caring mothers and consider themselves fortunate that they do not have Joan Crawford as 'mother dearest'.