Movie Review: Ma

Ma *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Tate Taylor.

Written by: Scotty Landes.

Starring: Octavia Spencer (Sue Ann), Diana Silvers (Maggie), Juliette Lewis (Erica), McKaley Miller (Haley), Corey Fogelmanis (Andy), Gianni Paolo (Chaz), Dante Brown (Darrell), Tanyell Waivers (Genie), Dominic Burgess (Stu), Heather Marie Pate (Ashley), Tate Taylor (Officer Grainger), Luke Evans (Ben), Margaret Fegan (Stephanie), Missi Pyle (Mercedes), Allison Janney (Doctor Brooks), Kyanna Simone Simpson (Young Sue Ann).

 

Ma is exactly the kind of B-level horror film that is best experienced with an audience – who will laugh and gasp along with it. This is a goofy horror movie in which a middle aged, working class black woman in Smalltown, USA befriends the local high school kids with the express purpose to torment them later on – a long game of revenge for her own experiences in high school, at the hands of the kid’s parents. You have to swallow a lot of coincidences and goofiness to believe any of this for a second – and yet, if you’re able to do that, Ma is a riot.

 

The woman in question is Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer), who works as a receptionist and vet assistant to a demanding bitch of a boss (Allison Janney, appearing here in a very small role for some reason, who nevertheless, is having a blast being the worst boss imaginable). She meets Maggie (Diana Silvers) – the new girl at high school, having moved back to her mom Erica’s (Juliette Lewis) hometown after a divorce – and her new friends outside the local liquor store. Maggie asks her to buy them some alcohol, which she initially refuses – but then agrees, when she realizes one of the kids – Andy (Corey Fogelmanis) is the son of Ben (Luke Evans) – who Sue Ann knew in high school. Soon, Sue Ann isn’t just buying them booze – but offering them her basement as a place to party. At first, she keeps her distance – but then, she’s right down there partying with them. And soon, it becomes very creepy.

 

I won’t reveal more of the plot – you got all of that from the trailers – in large part because the film takes some bizarre twists and turns that are best experienced in movie, because they are so unbelievable that only in the context of the rest of the film does it make any sense at all. The film was written by Scotty Landes, who seems to having fun with all the bizarre scenes he’s writing, and had to hope that he would get a cast and director who would make them work. Surprisingly, he does. The director here is Tate Taylor – who directed The Help, and has struggled since (Get On Up, about James Brown, is fascinating but kind of doesn’t go anywhere and his The Girl on the Train adaptation was the dullest version of that novel possible). Here, Taylor fully embraces the goofiness, and goes with it. And his The Help Oscar winner, Octavia Spencer, he finds the perfect Sue Ann. Spencer has no shame here – she goes for broke, increasingly as the movie goes along, and she becomes completely unhinged. It is a brilliant performance really – far better than her work in The Help, although Sue Ann shares some similarities with the woman who made the poop pie in that. Diana Silvers – memorable in Booksmart last week – is fine here as well. She has to keep the film at least somewhat grounded in what is really a co-lead, and she succeeds.

 

Ma doesn’t take anything seriously. It could have – it hints at questions of race and class, but doesn’t really address any of them. You can imagine a Jordan Peele version of this film that would do that, but it’s clear here that basically this film wants to have fun watching a crazy Octavia Spencer torment and torture teenagers and their parents. Taken in that spirit – and viewed with the right audience, who will role with the insanity, Ma is a sick delight.