The horror genre is having a major moment right now, with Get Out, Us, Child’s Play and so many more ready to provide us all with scares we’ve desperately been missing.
And psychological thriller Ma set out to do just that – but it sadly misfired and left us with more questions and confusion than heart-stopping moments.
The film follows Octavia Spencer’s Su Ann (aka Ma) as a middle-age vet assistant who befriends a group of teenagers by buying them alcohol outside a liquor store, before letting them all party in her basement under the guise of wanting them all to be safe.
The high-schoolers – Maggie (Diana Silvers), Andy (Corey Hawkins), Haley (McKaley Miller), Chaz (Gianni Paolo) and Darrell (Dante Brown) – are given free reign over her basement, with as much alcohol and food as they can stomach.
However there’s just one rule – don’t go upstairs.
Soon Ma’s house is the place to be, and she joins in with the gang, partying like a teenager and reliving her youth.
So far, so creepy.
But it gets worse for the youngsters, as she becomes dangerously obsessed with them all, stalking them online, on social media – and eventually to their school – in a bid to become ‘friends’.
In between the modern day plot, there are also flashbacks to Su Ann’s own school days, when she would go out of her way to impress the cool kids, with disastrous consequences for all involved as she attempts to make her new pals pay for her teenage torment.
There are some lighter moments, with Juliette Lewis (Erica) coming into her own as Maggie’s worried mum, and Allison Janney making a surprise cameo as Ma’s colleague.
Octavia leads an all-star cast, including Luke Evans and Missi Pyle, but while the names are big, the film never seems to kick into second gear.
There are a few jumps along the way, but by the time the film hurtles to the climax, we’re left with more than a few questions and no time for them to be answered.
With Blumhouse producing some of the decade’s stand-out movies – The Purge, Split, Get Out among others – it’s only natural that Ma will be compared to them all, and unfortunately she just doesn’t live up to the hype.
Ma is out in cinemas on 31 May.
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