[Pride 2021] Mother May I?

As more and more people were starting to get vaccinated earlier this year, a common sentiment I saw across my Twitter feed was people talking about how excited they were to be able to go home and hug their mom for the first time since the great pandemic of 2020. I, too, was swept up in the excitement of getting to spend time with my mom again, but I also realized how the moms in horror movies have been filling that void for me.

Horror has always had a fascination with mothers in all their forms. From stepmoms and aunts to surrogate mothers and from pregnant women to psycho grannies, horror has embraced every aspect of the maternal pathway. These mothers have become beloved throughout the horror community with particular love coming from queer horror fans. But why do we as queer persons love a pistol packing psycho mamma?

Here are some theories I have come up with.

They make the movie better

You would be hard pressed to find a horror fan who, upon the mention of characters like Ellen Ripley, Rosemary Woodhouse, or Margaret White, does not start thinking of lines like “Get away from her you bitch!” The mothers in horror movies manage to take what would be stock female roles in traditional films (the protector, the new mom, the religious fanatic) and elevate them to a place where they become one of the most memorable things in the film. The Mother’s Day remake from 2010 is a perfect example; Rebecca De Mornay takes what is, on the surface, your standard overbearing/ slightly crazy mom character and makes her into something so raw and terrifying yet seductive that you end up fast forwarding the movie just to get to the moments with her in them. Even when the moms are doing admittedly criminal things (Pamela Voorhees I look in your direction) we as viewers want them to get away with it and keep being incredible because they add so much to their respective movies that it is so hard when they aren’t around (like how our moms add so much to our lives).

They are genuinely terrifying

We all had a moment in our lives when we disappoint our parents. Maybe you failed a test, maybe you stole something or maybe your family did not agree with your sexuality, but we can all relate to feeling that parental disappointment. Whenever your mom got mad at you felt the most scary because moms, based on what Hallmark tries to have us think, are usually the calm peaceful unshakable ones. So having your mom go off and chew you out would be the scariest thing for a kid (it was for me). Horror understand that deep fear all too well. Toni Collette’s dinner table speech in Hereditary isn’t just iconic because Toni Collette is an international treasure and sells that speech for everything it is worth. It’s also iconic because we’ve all been at the other end of a tongue lashing from our mothers and know how truly horrifying that is. Viveca Lindfors as Mrs. Collins in Silent Madness is another peak example. We spend the whole movie in fear of the silent madman terrorizing the college campus, but when (spoiler alert!) Mrs. Collins reveals that she is actually the killer from back in the day and that the madman is her son, it is a testament to the power of Lindfors that Mrs. Collins becomes one of the scariest things in the film.

They always fight for their kids

As queer people, many of us have had to fight everyday of our lives. We fight for visibility, we fight for equality, and we fight for tolerance. While some queer kids are lucky enough to have mothers that support them (Queen Sally Field being a perfect example), most of us have had to go in alone. That is why horror moms are most appealing: no matter what happens with the child or who they are, the mom will come in and fight to the death to protect her baby. A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Marge Thompson burned a pedophile to death to protect her daughter, Estelle Wainwright was willing to fight an elitist system because of her daughter being snubbed and gave up her life so that her daughter could live and have a successful life, and Amelia Vanek was willing to fight the Babadook and face her demons rather than lose her son. For my money- the best example of this type of mom in horror is Malin Akerman’s character in The Final Girls. This character does not have any memories or connections to the daughter that her actress would give birth to, but she feels so protective and connected to Taissa Farmiga that she is willing to sacrifice her own life to save the daughter she will never know.

When I was in high school I got into the show Dexter and to my surprise my mom got into it with me. We would go to Blockbuster and grab the latest season on DVD so we could binge it together. Those memories of curling up with my mom and watching the dark, twisted world of Dexter play out are some of my favorite moments I have shared with her. While she can be scary, my mom has always been there to fight for me and support me and she has definitely made my life better by being in it.

So to all the moms out there (both real and in the movies) thank you for all that you do for your horror-loving brood of children. Happy Belated Bloody Mother’s Day!

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