Ma (2019) poster
2019 · horror · thriller · slasher · revenge

Ma

Directed by Tate Taylor1h 39m2019
ElsewhereIMDb5.670kRT55%Metacritic53
  • heavy
  • brisk
  • extreme
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, kinetic, extreme horror / thriller, inventive in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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Sue Ann is a loner who keeps to herself in her quiet Ohio town. One day, she is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends, and Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her own.

Our read · Ma (2019) reads as a heavy, kinetic, inventive horror · thriller · slasher entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Ma

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want Octavia Spencer playing a lonely basement-party nightmare.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakenbuilds to a gut-punch finalegrips by minute 42attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-updrug usegraphic violencenuditycringe humiliation

Skip it tonightYou hate slow-burn teen horror that turns vicious in the final act.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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