First and foremost, that\u2019s due to Spencer\u2019s appropriately scenery-chewing portrayal of a deeply unhinged, deceptively meek-looking 40-something vet tech who never got over some <\/span>deeply<\/span><\/i> traumatic things that happened to her when she was in high school. A bit of a busybody with little to occupy her time outside of office hours (and sometimes during office hours, much to the chagrin of her irritable boss, played to perfection by Allison Janney), she sees an opportunity to finally fit in when she meets a \u2014 mostly white \u2014 group of local high school kids who ask her to buy them alcohol one Friday night.<\/span><\/p>\n Sue Ann fulfills their request for booze \u2014 she also grew up in their small Ohio town and knows how little to do there is \u2014 but she also makes sure to get their information and report them to the cops. It\u2019s all part of her sneaky plan to insinuate herself into their lives: Thanks to social media, she soon connects all of the kids to their parents (who happen to be the same group of kids who tormented her back in the day) and proceeds to stalk them, obsessed with getting the gang to like her, despite their sizable age difference. <\/span><\/p>\n The key: offering them a private place to party (aka her basement \u2014 not creepy at all) and whatever snacks and booze they desire. Because she\u2019s a woman and she looks so harmless, none of the kids in the group have any reason to suspect that something isn\u2019t right with Sue Ann. Only 16-year-old Maggie (Diana Silvers) \u2014 the sweet, shy new girl in town \u2014 seems to be hip to the fact that there\u2019s something wrong with the arrangement, but she doesn\u2019t protest right away. She, too, is trying to fit in, and she\u2019s happy to have found a friend group and maybe even a boyfriend so soon after her move. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not often that we get to see an Academy Award-nominated actress go full-on horror villain (watching Spencer mutter the C-word as she plows down a horrible character with her truck is a thing to behold), although the film never seems <\/span>quite<\/span><\/i> sure whether it wants to categorize Sue Ann as such. We spend a lot more time with Sue Ann than we do we do with, say, Freddie Krueger, and the backstory the filmmakers slowly parcel out is intended to engender some sympathy for her, even as we discover later on in the film that Sue Ann had been up to some pretty awful things well before she met Maggie and her crew.<\/span><\/p>\n Up-and-comer Silvers \u2014 <\/span>so good in a small role in Olivia Wilde\u2019s <\/span>Booksmart<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0 \u2014 adds some balance to the film by way of her doe-eyed heroine, and it\u2019s hard to imagine she won\u2019t find her way into some meatier parts in the near future. She and Juliette Lewis (who plays her mom) have a nice rapport that could support a less-blood-soaked coming-of-age story \u2014 you know, one that doesn\u2019t make this viewer regret lobbying for more equal-opportunity nudity in film. (You\u2019ll definitely know what I\u2019m talking about when you get there.) Look, we\u2019ve got to get one thing out of the way here. If you go into Ma expecting incisive commentary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":11949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/crookedc.png\")
<\/span><\/p>\nGrade: B-<\/span><\/h3>\n
1 hr., 41 min.; rated R for violent\/disturbing material, language throughout, sexual content, and for teen drug and alcohol use<\/em><\/h5>\n
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