How to resolve AdBlock issue? The psychological thriller of twisted obsession in “Ma” has a thematic connection to “Carrie” in that the titular characters of both films suffered bullying and public humiliation during high school.
The big difference is that in “Ma” the revenge factor, though much less violent than sensitive teen Sissy Spacek’s retribution, emerges when the abused victim has reached middle-age.
Octavia Spencer’s Sue Ann, an assistant to the acerbic veterinarian Doctor Brooks (Allison Janney) who belittles her work ethic, is a loner who keeps to herself in the quiet Ohio town she never left after unpleasant high school memories.
Meanwhile, Erica (Juliette Lewis), a graduate of the same high school during Sue Ann’s time, moves back to the her hometown from California, with her teen daughter Maggie (Diana Silvers), after a failed marriage and loss of a job.
While her mom takes the job of cocktail waitress at a casino, Maggie is left pretty much to her own devices and falls in which a bunch of fellow teens who like to party with alcohol at the rock piles in a deserted area.
Prompted by ringleader Haley (McKaley Miller) to ask strangers to buy beer for the group outside a liquor store, Maggie is constantly rebuffed until Sue Ann comes along walking a three-legged dog and reluctantly agrees.
On a subsequent occasion, Sue Ann offers the teens the chance to avoid drinking and driving and being harassed by the police by hanging out in the basement of her home located in the countryside.
Laying down some ground rules, the most important of which is to never go upstairs, Sue Ann, who asks to be called Ma, joins the fun with a tight group that includes Andy (Corey Fogelmanis), who becomes Maggie’s boyfriend, Chaz (Gianni Paolo), and Darrell (Dante Brown).
Without a great deal of subtlety, Sue Ann is seen in flashbacks to her school days when she was badly treated by the classmates who now have their kids in high school. Andy’s father, Ben (Luke Evans), was a key instigator of the abusive behavior that has not been forgotten.
It doesn’t take long for Sue Ann to exhibit patterns of strange behavior. At one basement gathering, she orders Andy at gunpoint to strip naked, and then laughs that it was all a joke as he stands fully exposed in his birthday suit.
Recoiling at the bizarre turn of events, the kids decide to forego the party scene until Sue Ann pursues their forgiveness with endless text messages and weird selfie videos, and before long, half of the school has joined in the festivities in the basement.
For very good reason, Maggie grows suspicious of Sue Ann’s intentions, when everyone else in her group is oblivious to the signs of Ma’s malevolent, psychopathic behavior shining bright like downtown Las Vegas neon.
Not to spoil how the revenge-horror unfolds, suffice it to say that Octavia Spencer’s role, while not exactly understated, is sufficiently creepy and gleefully twisted that “Ma” proves entertaining despite its often inane plot twists.
‘Blood & Treasure’ on CBS
The location of the tomb of Antony and Cleopatra, the most ill-fated lovers in history, presumed by many experts to be somewhere near Alexandria, Egypt, has so-far eluded archeologists during search expeditions.
“Blood & Treasure,” a summer adventure series on CBS designed to offer easy, comfortable viewing, solves that mystery, Indiana Jones-style, upon the revelation that the Nazis snatched the sarcophagus of Cleopatra in 1942 from an Egyptian pyramid.
With Nazis involved, it’s no wonder that “Blood & Treasure” is derivative work that is inspired not only by “Raiders of the Lost Ark” but the entire canon of Indiana Jones adventures into archeological mysteries.
The series fun comes with the globe-trotting action that uneasily pairs former FBI agent Danny McNamara (Matt Barr), now working as an antiquities expert, and cunning Egyptian art thief Lexi Vaziri (Sofia Pernas) in a hunt for ruthless terrorist Karim Farouk (Oded Fehr).
Danny and Lexi are former lovers who had a falling out over the tragic bombing death of Lexi’s father, which she blames on Danny, even though Farouk was the culprit behind the deadly explosion.
In search of blood antiquities to finance terrorism and having kidnapped archeologist Dr. Anna Castillo (Alicia Coppola), Farouk discovers a sealed vault in a pyramid that the Nazis had already plundered, and so he blows up the place.
Danny is anxious to rescue Dr. Castillo because she was his mentor on antiquities, and with the backing of an eccentric billionaire (John Larroquette), the former FBI agent and Lexi chase leads in Europe, with a lot of attention to Italy.
As they chase after Farouk and his goons, they encounter unscrupulous individuals who may either be useful allies or dangerous enemies, including arms dealer Aiden Shaw (James Michael Shaw) who acts solely in his self-interest.
“Blood & Treasure” might be frivolous and loose with the historical artifacts, but it brings breezy summer fun that fills a void now that ABC’s “Whiskey Cavalier” has finished its run.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
