“There’s something off about Ma.”
It’s all fun and games and liquor until Octavia Spencer enforces her house rules in Ma, an upcoming Blumhouse thriller directed by Tate Taylor. The trailer carries the same effectively chilling air that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from the production house, but the added draw here, indisputably, is that you’ve never seen this Academy Award-winning actress in a role like this. Spencer plays a mysterious loner named Sue Ann, who agrees to buy liquor for a teenager named Maggie (Diana Silvers) and her group of friends while promising them a good time and a safe place to party in her basement. If this seems like it’s too good to be true, it obviously is, and the situation quickly spirals into shades of Don’t Breathe, The Collector, and other genre entries.
Also starring Juliette Lewis as Maggie’s mom (who, it seems, also falls under Sue Ann’s spell), Ma offers the following synopsis:
Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her own. She offers the kids the chance to avoid drinking and driving by hanging out in the basement of her home. But there are some house rules: One of the kids has to stay sober. Don’t curse. Never go upstairs. And call her “Ma.” But as Ma’s hospitality starts to curdle into obsession, what began as a teenage dream turns into a terrorizing nightmare, and Ma’s place goes from the best place in town to the worst place on earth.
Taylor, who previously worked with Spencer while helming The Help, told Variety that he immediately wanted to cast her in this role after reading the script. “It was so serendipitous, because Octavia and I are always complaining about being offered the same sh*t,” he said. “And I read this and thought, ‘Oh f*ck.’ This is so f*cking weird and awesome and I want Octavia be the lead.”
Ma will scare the bejesus out of audiences on May 31. Here’s a new poster.
