Review: Ma

Single mum Juliette Lewis and her teen daughter Diana Silvers move back to Lewis’ hometown, where she’s got a casino waitress gig. Silvers makes fast friends with a bunch of local kids, who one day are looking for someone of age to buy booze for them. They happen upon veterinary assistant Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer), who happily buys the alcohol and insists they call her ‘Ma’. She even tells them to come on over to her place to drink and party down in her basement. Being morons, the kids think this is a great idea after a mere miniscule amount of hesitation. Pretty soon they’re partying down at Ma’s on a regular basis. Ma even cuts a rug down in the basement herself from time to time. However, Ma starts to come across as pushy and needy, and turns the kids off. However, Ma doesn’t take kindly to rejection. She also has issues related to her own stint at high school as an outcast. Luke Evans plays the former school hunk still in town, whom Lewis has always had the hots for. Allison Janney briefly plays Ma’s employer.

 

I’m not sure why Octavia Spencer decided this 2019 film was worthy of her presence as both actress and producer, but her bizarro casting-against-type is all it has going for it. Directed by Tate Taylor (“The Help”, the appalling thriller “The Girl on the Train”) with a clichéd script by TV writer-producer Scotty Landes (“Workaholics”), even with Spencer’s compellingly goofy work, this is still a thoroughly predictable, dopey return to the ‘fill-in-the blank from Hell’ subgenre of horror-thrillers. It was around as early as 1987’s “The Stepfather” and even before that, but it was particularly a very big thing in the early to mid 90s. There you had films like “Unlawful Entry” (Cop), “The Temp” (duh), “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” (Nanny), “Mikey” (Child), and “Pacific Heights” (Tenant), and many others. Taylor and Landes don’t really give us much new or particularly of any interest here in attempting to revive that subgenre.

 

Spencer’s the whole show, playing the most oddball, unassuming, unlikely psycho I’ve come across in a long time. At one point she busts out the robot dance to the amusement of the drunken teens. Hilarious stuff, but also just plain weird. You keep watching because you want to find out just what this weird middle-aged lady’s deal is. It takes forever and is ultimately not worth the wait, I’m afraid. If you’ve seen a few 80s slasher movies and also watch a lot of true crime TV, you’ll be way ahead of the game here, as I indeed was. That’s a big problem, unfortunately. For the most part the film is stupid, clichéd, and slow. I’m shocked that many critics have found merit in it, even delving into a dissection of the supposed racial issues it deals with. I’m not blind to the potential that there’s some racial themes at play here, but I think others might be blind to the schlocky overall intent and execution. This is trash, and not especially good trash either (Otherwise, we all know I’d love it), no matter what the themes are. It’s got more in common with the original “Prom Night” and thematically than anything socioeconomic/racial/cultural. Hint: The role was originally written to be white. So while it was re-written to suit Spencer, racial themes were not a part of the script’s genes, originally. That was all added later.

 

Lead actress Diana Silvers has some signs of charisma, and Juliette Lewis could play a trashy single mother in her sleep. Otherwise, this is pretty mediocre stuff that somehow attracted a decent cast. I actually found myself kinda on Ma’s side, because these teens were complete morons for getting themselves into this situation in the first place. Ma is clearly bonkers, why are they hanging around her? Is partying really that important that we’re supposed to believe they’re blind to the obvious danger? Frankly, they deserved their fate. Since I don’t think that was the filmmaker’s intended reaction, it goes down as a fail.

 

A very strange Octavia Spencer aside (reuniting with the director of “The Help”), this is a flat, wholly formulaic thriller in the early-to-mid 90s mould only for the Blumhouse era. Spencer’s lonely, pathetic weirdo take on the standard unbalanced stalker/killer role is interesting. The film itself is largely not. Why did this cast think that this played-out psycho-thriller subgenre needed another entry? And what a pathetic waste of Allison Janney in a glorified walk-on. Not much to see here really, though it works a bit better if treated as a loopy, dark comedy. Surely no one can take this shit seriously, right?

 

Rating: C