Ma (Review)
Ma Gathers a Cast Better than it Deserves.
Every once in a while a horror movie manages to gather a pretty impressive cast of actors. Unfortunately, Ma squanders their talents. While on paper, the film might look like a recipe for success, it feels like it falls short in pretty much every way imaginable. It’s not so much that Ma is a bad movie, it’s just such a disappointing one considering that it has Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer playing the villainous lead. I for one was looking forward to a horror movie where the bad guy was an unassuming black woman. While Spencer might be the best part of the film overall, not even her talents can elevate Ma above being just another mediocre horror movie.
At first glance, Ma seems like one of those horror movies that could very well be a character study into the mind of a deranged woman. After all, it features Octavia Spencer as the titular Ma, a woman who ends up becoming obsessed with a group of high scholars that she pumps full of booze and lets party at her place. As the case often goes in movies like this, it turns out that Ma is more than a little unbalanced thanks to past trauma and her desperation to be part of the group causes her behavior to become more and more unsettling.
I was actually pretty impressed with the cast that Ma managed to put together. Of course, I already mentioned Octavia Spencer, but I was surprised to see the likes of Luke Evans, Juliette Lewis, and Allison Janney in supporting roles in the film. The all bring their acting prowess to bear, but the script they have to work with embraces all the tropes that come with the horror genre. Especially the one about characters being dumb as stumps in order to propel the plot forward. That being said, I was was actually pretty impressed with Diana Silvers who played the lead in the film (and I recognized from Booksmart earlier this year). She does the most that she can with the role that she’s given and luckily she manages to turn in a pretty genuine performance to keep the audience invest in at least her character’s well being throughout the film.
The real problem with Ma is that the script is written by a guy who “drove a giant double-sided butt from Los Angeles to New York City to moon the entire country.” Scotty Landes past works are a hodgepodge of television series of questionable overall quality. Sure, I’ve enjoyed a few of the shows he’s worked on, but given the subject matter, the last thing I might expect from him would be a well-conceived horror film. Low and behold, the very foundation that Ma is built on is a total mess. Sure, she suffered some past trauma at the hands of high school bullies, but it’s such a weak back story for her villainous actions that it’s hard to really find any menace to her. In fact, the reasoning behind a lot of her actions is never fully explored. It simply expects the audience to believe that she’s crazy and to ignore the numerous plot holes that you could drive a truck through.
By horror standard, Ma is pretty weak sauce. Sure, Spencer turns in a pretty creepy performance, but I meet creepy people every time I stop by the local Walmart. It tries to restrain itself and keep the story grounded in reality, which is not exactly the makings for a truly scary horror movie. Sure, there have been some scary movies based on true stories over the years, but Ma isn’t based on a true story, so I have no idea why it feels so restrained. While Ma might be unsettling at points there’s never a moment where I found her particularly threatening or menacing. In fact, the stakes stay pretty low for the most part and things only fall into place because none of the characters seem to believe in calling the cops on a creepy older woman who keeps buying booze for underage children.
Simply put Ma is pretty sub-par as a horror movie. It’s a jumbled mess of concepts that was lucky to score a cast capable of making it better than it has any right to be. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is nothing sufficiently scary about Ma. Sure, the character is creepy and things eventually escalate, but I’m not going to miss any sleep worrying about Octavia Spencer lurking in the shadows. It’s not so much bad as it is disappointing. It squanders the talent gathered for it and could have benefited from a little more guidance from horror producer extraordinaire, Jason Blum.
