A couple of months ago, My friends and I saw Jordan Peele's new film, Us. We had been looking forward to it for about half a year at that point and were pretty hyped. While we waited for the movie to start, a trailer for this movie came on, and it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. When it ended I turned to my friends and we all unanimously agreed we HAD to see it. Not because it looked good, but because it looked exceptionally bad. Now that we've all found the time to go see it, I have to say, I wasn't disappointed.
1. The Story
The story of this movie is pretty simple. A crazy woman terrorizes kids who are foolish enough to let her into their lives. That's it. It never gets more complex than that. It's not a super complicated story, but it doesn't need to be. This is a movie that, let's be real, was put out to make as much money as possible by spending as little money as possible.
Blumhouse Productions is infamous for their cheap style of film making. They spend as little money as possible in the making of their movies to maximize profit. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's actually pretty smart. The problem is, most of the time we end up getting a movie that doesn't feel like it's trying hard in any capacity. Ma doesn't feel like it's sleepwalking through the story, but it definitely isn't throwing any surprises at you. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie.
2. The Acting
All of the characters in this movie are supposed to be about 16 years old. Obviously, they're all played by people in their mid to late 20's. It's not TOTALLY distracting in this movie, and a lot of that has to do with the dialogue. My friends didn't agree with me, but I just spent a year living on a college campus, and nothing they said in this movie was anything I wouldn't hear in town.
It's a horror movie made in the 2010s. Yes, the characters make ridiculous decisions. Yes, There's a lot of bad line reads from otherwise competent actors. Yes, the ending is pretty rushed an unsatisfactory. Did that stop me from enjoying the film? Not at all.
3. The Verdict
Ma is the kind of movie that you have to go see with a group of friends. I went with about seven of mine and I couldn't believe how packed the theater was. The entire audience was dying laughing every time a scene that was supposed to be creepy ended up flat out hilarious. Go see this movie with your friends and I promise you, you won't be disappointed.
