Editorials
Horror Behind Friendly Faces: ‘Ma’ and the Terrifying Subversions of Expectations and Stereotypes
Horror, as a genre in the world of art, has always been about subverting expectations.
It’s honestly the main purpose of horror. Yeah, when looking at the genre on a surface level, succeeding at being scary sounds like the main goal to prioritize. After all, what good is a horror movie if the actual horror content is unable to do its job and scare the audience? It’s these expectations that have motivated studios and horror filmmakers to ramp up the “scary” factor to an 11 and fill their movies to the edge of the brim with aggressively executed sequences that prioritize jumps over slow-burns. In the moment it may be scary and possibly even downright terrifying, but were expectations subverted? Was there something in the film that encouraged a reexamination of personal biases or did the movie play out exactly as expected while feeding into the increasingly broad range of stereotypes?
By stereotypes, I don’t just mean the ones exclusive to the world of horror. The stereotypes of horror have long been the subject of multiple horror satires over the years. The stereotypes of the “final girl” being a down-to-Earth virgin, the black characters dying first or early in the movie, and characters having to follow certain horror movie rules to survive have already been commented on and deconstructed in the likes of Scream, The Cabin in the Woods, Get Out, Revenge, and countless other horror movies. I’m talking about stereotypes that exist outside of the world of movies. Social and racial stereotypes that reinforce the status quo we have been raised to believe. These stereotypes often play into our real-world fears and prejudices, such as an inane fear of what we do not know. We naturally become skeptical at the concept of something that we do not fully understand, so horror movies exploring that area of fear can make for an uncomfortable movie-watching session that makes a rewatch practically impossible.
These variables are exactly why I find the concept of the new Blumhouse horror-thriller, Ma, incredibly intriguing. On a first glance, Ma is presenting itself as the all-too-familiar slasher flick that has us bear witness to a group of unfortunate teenagers meeting their demise at the hands of a crazed serial killer. It’s the type of horror film that looks to follow in the bloody footsteps of Halloween, the Friday the 13th series, and the countless slasher flicks that have used this well-worn formula. Ma is deviating from this formula by having the main villain portrayed by a seemingly kind-hearted woman played by Oscar-winning actress, Octavia Spencer. With that casting choice alone, Ma has already successfully subverted expectations in a unique and disturbing manner. But why though?
Octavia Spencer’s presence as an actor doesn’t scream “horror villain” in any particular way, does it?
After all, the Oscar winner has spent a bulk of her career working up her reputation as a character actor since her first role in 1996. Her roles were consistent, but never noticeable and it wasn’t until her Oscar-winning performance in Tate Taylor’s The Help in 2011 where Spencer gained mainstream attention.
But even as her career skyrocketed with appearances in the Divergent series, Snowpiercer, and two additional Oscar-nominated roles in Hidden Figures and The Shape of Water, Spencer’s filmography reinforced a trend with her acting style. To be specific, Spencer was (and still is with some of her recent features) confined to the role of a supporting character whose purpose is to help build up the story surrounding the main character(s) with a sassy attitude and sharp wit to boot. These roles seem to have gradually confined her to the role of the lovable friend who only has others’ best interests in mind. Even her co-lead role in Hidden Figures has her sharing her screen time with two other leads (granted, this is understandable given the real story behind these women of NASA). It’s gotten to the point where her role in the story could easily be considered a “type” and when Spencer appears in a movie, it’s familiar and even comfortable to see her in exactly what is expected of her nowadays.
Ma is where this stereotype looks to be flipped on its head.
Instead of playing the supportive lovable friend to the main character, Spencer is taking charge as Sue Ann, a veterinary aide who develops an unhealthy obsession with a group of teenagers she befriends after being asked to buy alcohol for them. Obsession turns into slasher violence as it is heavily implied that she will wreak terror upon the kids and anybody who happens to stand in her way. There’s no undead monster with a machete to run from. There’s no dream demon lurking in nightmares to avoid. The movie’s ultimate baddie is someone that you wouldn’t be blamed for doubting sinister intentions with. Instead of an unstoppable creature that cannot be understood, Sue is a familiar person who would seem fun to have a beer with. The trailer shows her laughing it up with the kids and partying hard with a giant smile on her face. This makes her grim turn unexpected and that’s arguably even more terrifying than a tall serial killer with no emotion.
It’s difficult to accept a darker perspective on something that was previously shown in a positive light. We’ve all had those moments to some degree. Something happens that completely, or at least partially changes our mind on what we thought to be the truth. Sometimes the realization is minor, other times it can be sad and depressing, and in the case of Ma, it proves to be deadly. The preconceived idea of a seemingly harmless and out-of-the-way person like Sue being such a disturbed person is hard to comprehend, especially with the beloved Spencer playing the role. But as mentioned before, horror aims to subvert expectations and this can prove to be too much to handle if done with the right situation.
Horror is a genre that not only relishes in twisting expectations, but encourages a shift in thinking when it comes to the various topics the genre has covered. When The Stepford Wives came out in 1975, it pushed for people to take the time to think about what life is really like for seemingly happy trophy wives living in nice and quiet neighborhoods. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre placed the bulk of its horrific content on a hot and sunny day, bringing the terrifying murder spree to the natural spotlight of the sun. Pet Sematary and Children of the Corn made audiences look at young children with a slightly more skeptical eye.
Horror, above all things, wants to make us feel uncomfortable with what we’re seeing.
Sure, any horror film with gratuitous amounts of gore can inspire squeamishness and a possible loss in appetite, but a horror film that actively takes something positive and transforms it into something creepy and disturbing is one that is most likely to stick. Ma’s popularity on social media comes from the trailer’s depiction of Spencer and the fact that there’s just something off about seeing a typically friendly face like hers splattered with blood. The blinds are opening to give us a peak inside the mind of an otherwise kindly medical aide and what we’ll find is something we may or may not be able to comprehend.
It remains to be seen just how much impact Ma will have on popular culture post-release, but the attention the movie has gained on social media proves that people are interested, if not simply curious to see what ‘Ma’ has up her sleeves. Brightburn just gave us a reason to fear the alien boy we have celebrated in comics for decades and Ma may give us a reason to not be so trustworthy of “cool” strangers that love to party. It’s not a comforting thought to have our personal world views be questioned at its core, but horror has never been known as a stable safe space to begin with.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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