Film Review: Ma

"What You Did To Me, It Never Goes Away..."

With Blumhouse Productions essentially proclaiming themselves as the second reincarnation of Hammer Horror Studios, the likes of the excellent, Get Out, and the financially successful, Happy Death Day, have allowed the company to pretty much make anything they want with a guaranteed box office reward. Enter Ma, a completely barmy, over-the-top stalker horror which takes hints from pretty much every single B-movie ever, one which sees Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water, Instant Family) as the titular mother figure, Sue Ann, a lonely veterinary technician who soon begins a middling friendship with town newcomer, Maggie Thompson, as played by rising star, Diane Silvers,(Booksmart) and her own freshly found group of friends who quickly become attracted to Sue Ann's willingness to both provide an abundance of alcohol and a safe place to party. Directed by the steady hand of Tate Taylor, a filmmaker who reunites with Spencer after their work together on the Academy Award winning, The Help, Ma is a solid and well made addition into the Blumhouse repertoire which just happens to have a particularly talented actress in the lead role of a genuinely unnerving and creepy genuine psychopath.  

Bearing a very similar narrative to that of Greta earlier this year, a stalker movie which too featured a prominent and well regarded actor/actress in the lead role of a movie which was undoubtedly too schlocky and mad for mainstream audiences, Ma basically swaps Isabelle Huppert for Spencer and Chloe Grace Moretz for Silvers whilst adding a slightly more audience-friendly filmic texture. Whilst the movie never really evokes any sense of longing dread or threat to our laddish, alcohol and sex obsessed leading group of rebellious teenages, Ma instead balances nicely the absurdity of its' narrative with a hefty streak of black comedy as you giggle your way through a ninety minute picture which allows Spencer to not only chew the scenery, but devour it. With the most menacing on-screen haircut since Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men and a personality which mixes Annie Wilkes from Misery with Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Spencer is undoubtedly the star turn within the movie, and with a couple of truly nasty, sadistic and memorable set pieces, Ma is not exactly groundbreaking, but with enough positive elements to make genre fans happy, the latest Blumhouse chapter is cheap, giggle-inducing fun. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Booksmart

"Amy, We Only Have One Night Left To Have Studied And Partied In High School. Otherwise, We’re Just Going To Be The Girls That Missed Out..."

Acting as the hundred and eighty first coming of age movie this year alone, give or take a couple of exaggerated additions, Booksmart acts as the directorial debut of the wonderfully talented Olivia Wilde, who follows in the footsteps of the equally brilliant Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) by making the tricky transition from in front of the camera to behind it with enormous success. With Gerwig basing the screenplay for her own coming of age story on her personal experiences growing up in 1990's Sacramento, the template for Booksmart from writing duo, Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins, appeared on the infamous "Black List" of unproduced screenplays for a number of years before being picked up by Wilde and her production company, and in the transition from paper to screen, Wilde's debut sees Kaitlyn Dever (Beautiful Boy) and Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird) play best of friends, Amy and Molly, as they hit the eve of their high school graduation and become ready for their next step into adult life. With both believing their hard work and grades have been the result of a complete absence of any form of debauchery during their school life, they soon find out that even the hardest of party animals have likewise secured an impressive future, resulting in both utilising the last night of high school to engage in as much carnage and outrageousness as humanly possible. 

With the set up rather familiar, taking nods from the classic coming of age tales of old, particularly George Lucas' American Graffiti and Richard Linklater's stoner comedy, Dazed and Confused, Wilde's movie moves like a steam train as it skips from the inner workings of American school life to the party-centric madness of primarily the wealthiest one percent, with gigantic yachts and mansion sized family homes acting as the basis for debaucherous set piece after debaucherous set piece. With the central characters more likeable then one would have thought after the film's rather irritating trailer, Booksmart doesn't solely aim for the outrageous, with a generous amount of characterisation and interesting narrative arcs allowing the final payoff to be more than rewarding, one which comes together with a familiar sentiment that all good coming of age movies do, whether it be the riotous declaration of friendship from The Breakfast Club or the beginning of a new chapter in Everybody Wants Some!!, Wilde's movie nicely fits the mould of what should be expected from such a genre movie. With a few scenes which do unfortunately test the patience, particularly an animated, drug-fuelled nightmare come the halfway mark which doesn't work at all, Booksmart is still an engaging, ludicrous and highly enjoyable cinematic debut from yet another filmmaker whose switch to behind the camera has paid off in spades.   

Overall Score: 7/10