Oh Mother...

Treacherous mother,
Hereditary (2018)

Say farewell to Jack Torrance, it is now mothers who attack, betray, damage, make suffer and hurt with their absence in horror movies. I have watched three horror movies last weekend, “Becky”, “The Lodge” and “Come to Daddy” and ALL of them are marked by the absence of the mother – either because of a sad death, a tragic suicide or the physical absence on a father-son vacation. And that absence has devastating consequences. Is that a coincidence? For anyone who watched horror movies in the 80s and 90s the lack of parental authority is something not only familiar, but almost a prerequisite, but what about only the mother disappearing? Is that a thing in horror movies right now?

A little research into the topicalization of mothers in horror shows that mothers are actually depicted so frequently in horror movies that it is safe to say they rule over the genre. Mothers have ALWAYS lived in the castle and their absence has frequently been the stuff of nightmares for many generations of people watching horror movies. Incidentally I stumbled upon the amazing article “The Many Roles of Mothers in Horror Movies” written by little red horror, which was not only super interesting to read, but also exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Little red categorizes mothers in horror movies as below:

• grief-stricken,
• the root of the problem,
• desperate for children,
• overbearing mother,

  
  

  
  

• murderer mothers,
• the protector,
• mother to a monster,
• dead mothers,
• the reluctant mother,
• pregnant and finally
• killed by their children.

So yeah, as you see, there are quite a number of ways in which mothers have been represented in horror movies; notwithstanding absence or presence. Little red's definitions are also very well mesh-able and can be mixed, allowing other blurred allocations. I think these fusions might be necessary because from the top my head I can think of a dozen mothers who fit more than one category offered here, the most prominent being the infamous Mrs. Norma Bates from "Psycho" (1960), who is the root of the problem, overbearing, mother to a monster and a dead mother all at the same time. The categories I am most interested in are the protector, dead mothers and the root of the problem. Considering that in all of the three flicks I am discussing below, a dead and/or absent mother acts as propeller of the plot, I want to first dig a little deeper into what exactly motherlessnes means in these films and how it affects the protagonists in terms of their place in the world and their reactions to it.

The loss of the mother means first and foremost the loss of the protection the mother provides and that very protection, or the lack thereof, plays a major role here. Becky's mother dies, leaving her alone with a father who then quickly finds someone to found a new family with; a family Becky does not feel part of. The situation is graver in "The Lodge"; Aidan's and Mia's mother kills herself, arguably the ultimate betrayal act against one's own children, also leaving them with their father. A man, who basically feeds them to the wolves with his own hands. In "Come to Daddy", Norval Greenwood, a privileged, hipster LA-musician who still lives with his mother in his late twens, learns to grow up and face life real fast during a vacation with the father he has never met before. These are young people who are deprived of the crucial safeguarding of a mother's protective wings, which engenders a huge amount of insecurities to which each one of them reacts differently: while Becky goes absolutely mad and wreaks havoc, little lambs Aidan and Mia are too young and hurt by their mother's suicide and their father leaving them with his new lover that they resort to rejection and trickery and finally Norval resorts to self-defense induced violence, learning to stand by himself and build a realistic relationship to his father.

Maybe it was a coincidence that I had these three movies on my schedule or maybe the topic of mothers is (or, pre-COVID19, was) indeed gaining significance, I don't know at this point and don't care as long as the movies are good. My favorite of these is definitely "Becky", but I found all of them very watchable nonetheless and would recommend them all.

I finally want to stress that it is not my personal opinion that children who lost their mothers turn out to be aggressive, mean, submissive or weird. I am only trying to discuss some movies I saw.

Wrath, Thy Name is Becky... an Infuriated Pre-Teen Girl!

Title: Becky

Angry teenager
Becky (2020)

Directors: Jonathan Millott, Cary Murnion

Starring:  Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, Joel McHale, Robert Maillet

 

Where did it all go wrong?

Jeffrey Hooper (Joel McHale) only wanted to repair the highly strained relationship to his daughter Becky (Lulu Wilson) by taking her to their lake house, that was supposed to be sold after the death of his wife. No wait, that's not the only thing he wanted! He also wanted to tell her that he decided to marry his new girlfriend. And if you think Becky was rude and pissed before these news, she is absolutely fuming after. So a series of events starts that will lead Pissy Becky to unleash her wrath on everybody and everything around her, especially the unsuspecting white supremacists who broke into her house in the search of a key (to some Nazi treasure) and who better should have stayed in jail.

Macauley Culkin has just been dethroned by Lulu Wilson: "Becky" is the new kid-against-villain movie for the Home Alone-generation! Only it is better because Becky actually gets to hurt Nazis - school girl style with sharpened pencils, broken rulers and all sorts of stationary.

The traditional premise of a cabin in the woods and home invasion is spiced up by Murnion and Milott with nasty and (very) bloody twists, colorful and playful camera works, rom-com teddy bear Kevin James as a perfectly, believably unlikable villain and, to the joy of genre fans, lots and lots of gore.

I especially rejoiced when the directors absolutely ruled out the chance of redemption for white supremacy by letting Becky end the little "good Nazi-bad Nazi" game in glorious rage. Don't miss this in-your-face kind of excellent shock wave of a movie by any means, Becky will show you there is absolutely no joking with an infuriated pre-teen girl.

Like Evil Little Lambs to the Slaughter - a Story Thoroughly Tragic

The Lodge (2019)

Title: The Lodge

Directors: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

Starring: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh

 

Being told that her husband and father of her two young children Adrian (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh) wants to get a divorce in order to marry his new lover, Laura Hall kills herself. Behind she leaves an emotional turmoil and a thickheaded and emotionally distant husband, who thinks it a good idea to send his new girlfriend on Christmas vacation with his children into a snowbound cabin in the middle of nowhere. By the way, his girlfriend Grace Marshall (Riley Keough) is the sole survivor of a suicide cult and is heavily dependent on her medication in order to find the mental strength to make it through the day. When one morning the three of them wake up to find that every single thing essential for their survival (food, toys, books, dog, and yes, medication too) has been mysteriously removed from the cabin, fatality ensues.

Despite the somewhat irritating bluntness of the movie in some areas (like the advanced representation of some of the scenes as puppet play), there are quite a few questions left unanswered too: Whose tragedy is this? Most importantly, what the hell was the father thinking?

The obviously weakest of the three films discussed here, "The Lodge" is also the arguably most tragic one because there are no real perpetrators here. Adrian and Lia being the most obvious victims; betrayed and hurt by their mother and father, they end up with a woman, who, on her part is also the victim of her own past and vulnerabilities.

What bothers me most here are the obvious parallels to the 2018 Ari Aster movie "Hereditary": the puppets, the emotionally loaded funeral scene, the involvement of a cult, the pastel colors and visuals, even the pacing. There are just way too many of these elements that "The Lodge" almost feels like a copycat who wants to jump on "Hereditary"s train of success. This just cannot go well because of "Hereditary"s obvious superiority to every movie made in the last decade and you would actually try and avoid a comparison with that kind of magnificent. And that's a shame because with a script a little more original and the wonderful acting this could have worked a lot better.

That One Time You're Going to Meet Your Father for the First Time in Your Adult Life...

Title: Come to Daddy

Director: Ant Timpson 

Starring: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley

Speaking about originality... Not something this 2019 Ant Simpson movie lacks.

Hipster musician and mommy's boy Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood) is invited by his father he hasn't seen since he was five years old to his luxurious cabin in Oregon. Even though he is welcomed in the beginning, the father soon starts showing signs of violence, insulting and threatening him in really ugly ways. When he dies of a heart attack during an altercation and there are no more places left in the local morgue, Norval needs to spend the time beside his father's body until his mother arrives to settle things. What happens next is a jumble of unexpected twists, lots of old men doing shady business, super dark humor and a son going to some lengths to establish a relationship with his father.

This is a whirlwind of a movie that made me chuckle more than once. The very dry humor leaks through even the nastiest and most suspenseful moments. Super fun to watch.