Ten years ago Blumhouse Productions took centre stage on the horror scene when they released what would become a cult classic, Paranormal Activity.
Since then, they have become masters of their craft, tapping into the teenage pulses with the Insidious franchise, Sinister, the Purge franchise, Happy Death Day, Upgrade, and the latest Halloween movie to name just a few of their hits.
With every win though, there have also been some failures. Personally, Unfriended, The Gallows, and The Darkness are all questionable, but some could argue that in order to stay relevant then Blumhouse can’t always have a 100% success rate. There have to be a few trips along the way as they continue to learn and create new ways to fright and delight.
So where does that leave MA?
Released in the States back in May, and with a fairly average Box Office return, the rest of the world would have to wait for the On Demand release which wouldn’t come about until September this year. All this doesn’t bode well and deserves closer scrutiny as to why MA failed to resonate with its audience.
Firstly, let’s look at its strengths, or in this case its one redeeming feature: Octavia Spencer. There’s good reason that she has had three Academy Award nominations and one win to her name and thanks to her talents, the audience is able to stick with this film longer than its weak plot line deserves.
Octavia plays Sue Ann, a local vet who is extends a hand to a group of teenagers looking to buy some booze.
“When Sue Ann obliges, the group are beside themselves by there’s more to the pleasant exterior, and Sue Ann slowly reveals her true methods in quite possibly the longest revenge act in history.
Hell she waited a whole generation.
It’s a shame as with a bit more effort and attention to detail with some depth of character, we may have ended up with a fairly decent thriller.
It doesn’t matter how deep Octavia channels her inner psycho, there’s only so much acting chops to dish out before the audience realises that she’s hauling around a cadaver of a script.
The teenagers themselves are incredibly week and two dimensional, with Maggie – new girl to the neighbourhood and our lead protagonist seemingly the only one to see through Sue Ann’s facade.
By which time, we couldn’t really care less and when the film tries to let everything off at the hinges, most audience members would have already bolted out of the door or stopped streaming by this point.
The actions are tiresome and in some places laughable that we really don’t give a damn what happens anymore.
It does boast a couple of decent supporting roles in brooding Luke Ford as one of the kids fathers, Alison Janney as a grumpy boss, and Juliette Lewis as Maggie’s mother and potentially the second decent thing about this movie. You feel for her plight as a single mother trying to make ends meet and resorting to coming back to her home town despite trying to break free from her old shackles. And hey, it’s Juliette Lewis God Damn It! This lady is always a pleasure to watch.
Prognosis:
Octavia Spencer steals the show as the unhinged Ma, but all that’s left behind is dead weight and a poor plot line.
This has to go down as a misfire from the Blumhouse canon of work.
- Saul Muerte
Surgeons of Horror 