Mothers of Horror
Written By C. M. Sasaguay
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Mothers of Horror – Mothers as the Antagonist in Horror Films
Piper Laurie in Carrie [left] and Patricia Clarkson in Sharper Objects [right]
In horror, there’s no trope more recognized than that of the wicked mother hellbent on destroying her children’s lives. It’s become such a constant portrayal that most fall into a banal stereotype. With iconic male villains a staple of the genre, where are the truly sinister women? Look no further then the adaptations of Stephen King’s Carrie and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects.
Sometimes a Mother’s Scorn is Sharper than A Knife
Centered around its titular character, Carrie (1976) focuses on the bullying she endures at school and her further misery at home with a religious fanatic for a parent, before she begins to manifest telekinesis. Played by Sissy Spacek, Carrie White is an outcast to her classmates solely due to her meek and awkward demeanor. When her mother, Margaret, learns that her daughter has started to “enter” into womanhood, she swings a book into her and proceeds to read a chapter entitled, “The Sins of Women.” A single parent, Margaret channels her own sexual guilt and rage to her next of kin. Sex for her is nothing more than “dirty touching” and Piper Laurie dives into the role, delivering high camp. Her red hair is wild like a lion’s mane. Her perverse praise of God is livid. If there’s still any doubt that Margaret won’t be securing the “Mother of the Year” award for ‘76, just you wait.
Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in Carrie
Carrie’s decision to attend her senior prom only leads to further maternal rejection. “After the blood, comes the boys!” Margaret gasps,“like sniffing dogs!” Then she’s exposed to her daughter’s strange abilities. “Witch,” she easily labels her. But Carrie finally becomes defiant. She knows attending the senior prom will be her last opportunity to show her classmates she can be normal. It seems Carrie may finally find that acceptance too when she’s crowned prom queen. Then a few bullies manage to have a bucket of pig’s blood splatter over her and Carrie burns down the prom in blind rage. Upon returning home, Carrie finds no solitude. Instead, she finds her mother, hellbent on finally ridding the world of her. With a butcher knife raised high and a face frozen in a blissful smile, Margaret hunts down her daughter until Carrie has no choice. Blades fly. Flesh is struck. Margaret draws her last breath pinned up along the kitchen door frame. Even with her bullies and her mother gone, Carrie finds no repose.
Amy Adams in Sharper Objects
Sharp Objects, set in the cicada-humming town of Wind Gap, follows journalist Camille Preaker as she returns home to cover the murders of two young girls but soon plunges into the psychological horror of childhood traumas and revelations. Amy Adams delivers a raw performance as Camille, a woman barely clinging on. It’s here where we find her mother, Adora Crellin (Patricia Clarkson), gliding around her grand victorian home in a gown and heels as if plucked from Gone with the Wind. We learn Camille once had a little sister, Marian, who was constantly ill. She was Adora’s favorite, turning Camille into all but a ghost. Eventually, Marian succumbed. Arriving home, the older Camille meets her new half-sister, Amma. An adolescent swinging from sugary sweet to selfishly cruel, Amma complies to the perfect female image Adora wants her to be. As for Camille, we see her full devastating defiance when her body is seen by her mother. Words are scarred into her flesh; years of self harm. “You’re ruined,” Adora hisses. “All out of spite.”
What happens when your past creeps up on you?
A cruel truth emerges when Camille discovers her sister’s fatal illness was in actuality, a slow- induced murder. Suffering from “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” Adora poisoned her favorite child in order to feel needed. Armed with gentle hands, Adora lost Marian but now has Amma. When Camille offers herself up in hopes to save her sister, Adora is at long last pleased. But while Camille attempts to finally condemn her for Marian’s death, Adora deflects. Instead, she indulges in a memory where her own mother had taken her deep into the woods one night and forced Adora to find her way home. “We all have bad childhoods,” Adora coos, “at some point you have to forget it, move on. Anything else is just selfish.” Adora’s idyllic life ends with the flashing of blue/red and the glint of handcuffs but like any true horror ending, there’s one final gut punch. Camille takes custody of Amma and it seems like a sisterly bond will finally be restored. Then Camille finds human teeth among Amma’s possessions — from Wind Gap’s murdered young girls. Before the screen cuts to black, Camille is left with a realization: her mother may be gone but she has left behind a monster.
Within Carrie’s heightened fantasy to Sharp Objects’ more nuanced character study, female horror characters have evolved. Yet, the generational damage remains identical. Here, daughters fall into their destructive ways due to the absence of a nurturing mother. Mothers are corrupted due to a dark past. And Amma? Talk about a bad apple from a rotten tree. We always thought the men of horror were wicked, but nevermind the father. Sometimes it’s the sins of the mother that children should be cautious of.
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