Director Tate Taylor relies on a few throwaway scenes involving the film’s only other black character to carry vague gestures toward racial politics without really getting into it

In this small-town, Blumhouse-backed horror film, Octavia Spencer stars as a middle-aged black woman who befriends a bunch of mostly white teenagers, then starts using them both to relive her youth and to avenge it.

The thrills come extra cheap and late in Tate Taylor’s Ma, a horror movie torn between its campiness and compassion.

Who knew Octavia Spencer would be the perfect actress to portray a 2019 version of Margaret White, the overbearing mother role that earned Piper Laurie an Oscar nomination for 1976’s “Carrie”? Probably only Spencer herself, who turns in a brilliantly campy performance in the otherwise serviceable high school horror flick “Ma.” Updated for the times, […]

The latest example of lurking ladies is “Ma,” director Tate Taylor’s film led by that notoriously terrifying monster Octavia Spencer. She gets laughs but little do the kids know she’s really getting revenge.

Anyone who walks into a theater to see “Ma” knows exactly the kind of…

Playing an eccentric small-town stalker-pest as if she were a real human being, Octavia Spencer roots a formula flick in something creepy.

Octavia Spencer makes for an endlessly entertaining villain in this messy B-movie thriller.

Everybody’s welcome at Ma’s. But good luck getting home safe.Oscar® winner Octavia Spencer stars as Sue Ann, a loner who keeps to herself.

There is a certain kind of horror movie in which every character involved is basically an asshole, and hello, let's talk about Ma. SPOILERS FOR MA FOLLOW Practically all the teenagers in this movie are narcissistic little jerks. All the...

Review: Octavia Spencer stars in the horror film "Ma," which goes in all kinds of unexpected directions. It's weird, messy and compelling.

Her "The Help" director Tate Taylor wants to go over the top while also dealing with a woman's trauma, and he can't nail the balance