Starring: Octavia Spencer, Luke Evans, Diana Silvers, Juliette Lewis, McKaley Miller, Corey Fogelmanis, Gianni Paolo, Dante Brown, Allison Janney
Director: Tate Taylor
Release date: 31st May 2019
A teenager named Maggie (Diana Silvers) and her mum Erica (Juliette Lewis) are moving back to the town where Erica grew up in Ohio. The town is full of memories and faces from her past. Maggie is starting her first day in a new school and it’s not long before she’s approached by a girl called Hayley (McKaley Miller) and her small group of friends. They ask her to come out with them to the local store where they take it in turns to ask passing adults to buy alcohol for them. Needless to say, their rate of success is extremely small, that is until they meet a woman who agrees to help them. She is very friendly and soon she tells them that she has a basement under her house where they can hang out and drink if they’d like. Thinking the offer is too good to be true, they follow her back to the house where they find the perfect place to hang out. They are told never to go upstairs.. The basement soon becomes a popular hangout spot for local teenagers but it’s not long before weird things start happening and the woman, who is now known as Ma becomes a lot more interested in Maggie and her friends. We soon discover there is much more to Ma than meets the eye…
A real psychological thriller at its heart, this is a whole new way of seeing Octavia Spencer as an actress. She’s incredibly versatile and has also done a lot of work in TV and also writes as a children’s author.
The film is a little bit of a slow burner to start with and it takes a short while to establish the characters and their roles in the bigger story. It becomes pretty clear quite quickly that Ma has some serious issues of her own going on and that there is a major story brewing in the background. What starts as a homecoming story for a mum and her daughter slowly descends into chaos and obsession.
If you love your movies slow brewing and with a load of twists and turns to them, then ‘Ma’ could be the film you’ve been waiting for. Octavia Spencer is absolutely terrifying in this movie and just as you think things can’t get much worse for the kids and their parents, things shoot off to a whole new level of mentalness. Some of her actions will leave you with your jaw on the ground and looking over your shoulder as you’re walking away from the cinema.
A fantastic psychological thriller, you will definitely see Octavia Spencer in a whole new light after watching this. Maybe don’t watch this one alone…
Overall: 8/10
