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.
Editorials
Not Another ‘Scary Movie’: Revisiting Forgotten Parody ‘Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th’
After Scream (1996) made a killing at the box office, as well as won over critics and audiences, a lot of folks in the movie biz thought they could do the same thing (and yield similar results). That thing, of course, being a slasher. Most of these opportunists wound up being pretty straightforward; they were low on humor or commentary. Yet others, like Scary Movie (2000), saw the potential for spoofing Scream, and acted on that impulse with both haste and excitement.
A few months after the Wayans’ comedy first hit theaters, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th landed on the USA Network, as part of the channel’s “Shriek Week” programming. That straight-to-cable (then home video) destination is possibly why many people still don’t know about this one. Or they simply chose to forget. Whatever the reason, only one of these two horror parodies came out on top—and it’s certainly not the movie where Coolio channeled Prince, and Tom Arnold saved the day.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th previously went by the name of I Know What You Screamed Last Semester. That Trimark acquisition then settled on a wordier title, just so it could avoid the litigious wrath of Miramax Films. Folks may or may not remember that Columbia Pictures was sued over the “implied connection” between I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream. So, yeah, there was no way that this competing Scream parody wasn’t going to be kept on a tight rein.
A Heavy Reliance on Late ’90s TV References
Simon Rex, Julie Benz, Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Tom Arnold and Tiffani-Amber Thiesen in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Naturally, there would be similarities between Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and Scary Movie—their scripts are built on the backs of the same two movies. It goes without saying that the other big slasher of the 1990s, I Know What You Did Last Summer, was as much of a target as Scream. However,the film pads itself with more TV references than Scary Movie did.
Half the cast coming off of (and in some cases, returning to) a WB show could be a reason why. Dawson’s Creek is particularly zeroed in on, based on how there’s a central character named “Dawson Deery“, and how the teen drama’s teacher-student affair plotline is satirized to the nth degree. As if there weren’t enough nods to television, Baywatch, VH1’s Pop Up Video, and even those cheesy Mentos commercials all serve as joke prompts.
Shriek director John Blanchard and writers Sue Bailey and Joe Nelms all hailed from television, so it’s understandable that they would stick close to home. The movie’s humor in general makes more sense, in light of learning that Blanchard worked on SCTV, Kids in the Hall, and MADtv. The writers, on the other hand, were each fairly green, with Bailey being the most experienced of the two; she wrote and produced the game show BattleBots. Nevertheless, they, plus Blanchard, churned out a passable, joke-a-minute movie. The whole thing is staggeringly of its time, but no one here was aiming for longevity.
Having seen enough of these kinds of movies, we know to expect jokes of the low-hanging fruit variety. That’s the parody’s whole prime directive. From the characters having names like “Screw Frombehind” and “Doughy Primesuspect”, to stereotyping that feels taboo nowadays, this is a movie from a different era of comedy. Its coarse, corny, and unapologetic sense of humor won’t sit well with everyone in these more enlightened times. In which case, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th can be treated as a time capsule.
Does Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th Humor Still Hold Up Today?
“You may already be a victim”—Someone receives a most peculiar threatening piece of mail in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Although Shriek doesn’t live up to its own claims of being so funny that you’ll die of laughter, its bawdier parts could still lead to some nervous laughter. For instance, after this movie’s parallel to Drew Barrymore’s Scream character is done in—not by the killer but by a bug zapper—the movie throws a newspaper next to the victim’s fresh corpse. The headline? “Popular slut killed! Football team mourns”.
We then move on to the wacky and inappropriate goings-on at Bulimia Falls High School, home of the Hurlers. At this nexus of constant absurdity, indecency, and surrealism, students are seen fornicating on the lawn, cheerleading squad applicants are advised to be comfortable with partial nudity, and terrorists openly prepare for an anthrax attack. It can be a tad jarring to watch, especially if you didn’t grow up witnessing this style of comedy firsthand. Hell, even if you did, you may still have a “what the hell were they thinking?” reaction.
It’s not just the aggressively edgy humor here that can make you chuckle—the slapstick, the sight gags, and the ribaldry all have a decent chance of landing. The movie’s own villain, whose hockey mask was instantly transformed into a crudely Ghostface-esque one after coming in contact with an open flame, commits more cheap laughs than kills. His and his victims’ chase sequences, most of which are cartoonish in nature, left this writer grinning. The Scooby-Doo fan in me also totally ate up that clever unmasking joke.
Final Thoughts on This Forgotten Horror Parody
Shriek If You Know What Did Last Friday the 13th
Now, the jury is still out on whether these comedies are to blame for the death of the first slasher revival. There is more to consider than some parodies. At the very least, the likes of Scary Movie didn’t exactly encourage big studios to put their money on a trend that was being derided to death (and not as profitable as the spoofs). These sorts of movies also felt unnecessary at the time, given how their principal inspiration is already a deconstruction of the genre. But like anything else that quickly becomes popular, mockery is unavoidable.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th is indeed a movie nobody asked for, much less needed. As a sample of pre-millennium humor and cultural attitudes, it’s not always precise. But as I’ve laid out, your mileage may vary. Horror parodies typically don’t have the best track record, so managing one’s own expectations here is recommended.
Upon rewatching, I for one laughed a bit more than I did back then. Only this time, I responded to the jokes that my younger self didn’t notice or find all that amusing. So it just goes to show that the movies don’t change—we do.
Harley Cross and Majandra Delfino must unmask the killer a number of times in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th before learning their true identity.
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