Ah, motherhood. After a blissful pregnancy during which your skin absolutely glows, you are blessed with the perfect newborn who sleeps 10 hours every single night. They morph easily into a toddler who skips the terrible twos, just a perfect little cherub. Your relationship goes from strength to strength as they get older, and you are confidants and best friends. You are the most important person at their wedding, you have a host of grandchildren who adore you, and you enjoy a magnificent old age with your child who would never, ever put you into a nursing home.
(Record scratch.)
Picture-perfect motherhood was often portrayed in movies in days gone by, little darlings tucked into their twin beds before bedtime, never asking for so much as a glass of water, but that’s no longer the norm. Horror movies especially have tackled the subject head-on, pulling no punches about the myriad difficulties that motherhood can present (and yes, sometimes exaggerating them a little bit). Here are some of the best movies that encapsulate the bad side of things.
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10 Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Paramount Pictures
A true classic. Mia Farrow’s Rosemary is having the pregnancy from hell. Like a lot of first time mothers, she doesn’t know what to expect, so she’s not as alarmed as she should be that she’s losing drastic amounts of weight, and having violent abdominal pains. Against her instincts, she lets her husband convince her to switch doctors. The new neighbors are all just a little too excited about the upcoming arrival. Her pregnancy cravings are unsettling, to say the least: she forces down the vile-looking milkshakes that Minnie Castevet brings her every day, but what she really wants is raw meat, and she devours a raw chicken heart at one point. She worries constantly throughout the pregnancy, which is certainly not an uncommon complaint, wondering if the baby will be alright, if it will grow up to be a good and happy adult. Of course, her fears are not unfounded, as her baby turns out to actually be the spawn of Satan.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Mother (2009)
CJ Entertainment
Bong Joon-ho’s thriller stars the marvelous Kim Hye-ja as the titular, nameless mother. Her whole life is lived for her son, who has intellectual disabilities and an anger problem, and she struggles to make ends meet for the both of them by selling medicinal herbs, doing a little unlicensed acupuncture on the side. Their lives are turned upside down when the son, Do-joon, is accused of the murder of a young woman, and his mother sets out to prove his innocence. Do-joon doesn’t appreciate her interference, though, reminding her of a time in his childhood when she’d tried to end their impoverished lives by killing them both. It’s a dark, moving film about how much a mother is willing to do for her child, even if that child has done something terribly wrong.
8 The Babadook (2014)
Screen Australia
Widowed Amelia is not having an easy time raising her son Samuel, whose behavior is increasingly out of control, especially as it involves an unsettling storybook that appears at their house one day. Women fighting monsters to save their children is not a new theme, yet there’s something that feels undeniably fresh about The Babadook, possibly because it accepts the reality that sometimes, it might be easier to give in to the monster. Director Jennifer Kent expressed it thus: “I’m not saying we all want to go and kill our kids, but a lot of women struggle. And it is a very taboo subject, to say that motherhood is anything but a perfect experience for women.” The Babadook eloquently shows the duality of motherhood, that a mother would do anything for her child, but that it is also an exhausting, terrifying, unforgiving task.
7 The Hole in the Ground (2019)
A24
Insecurities about one’s mothering skills can lead to obsession, and it can be hard to accept when something about a child’s behavior is one’s own fault, rather than some tenuous outside force. The Irish horror starts out with Sarah and her son Chris taking up residence in a home in the countryside after Sarah leaves her husband (horror movies love a single mom, don’t they?) When he begins to act out, she begins to suspect the influence of the sinkhole in the backyard is causing his behavior, and the creature that she comes to believe inhabits it. The tragic story of a neighbor’s child has Sarah panicking, and her fears for her son increase until she must go into the sinkhole to find the answers she’s looking for. The creature ends up being very different than she expected, and she has to find a way to carry on regardless.
6 Mama (2013)
Universal Pictures
Technically, there are three mothers in Mama: the mother of the two girls who is murdered by their father; Jessica Chastain’s Annabel, the girlfriend of the girls’ uncle who agrees to help raise them after they are found living in a feral state; and Edith, the vengeful ghost who ran from an asylum with her baby, jumping off of a cliff in the chase, but separated from her child in the fall. The girls can’t be saved by their mother, so it’s Annabel who must save them from Edith/Mama. It’s got a bit of a fairy tale vibe, with Mama as the terrible monster after the little girls, but there’s also quite an air of tragedy, as Edith’s child was basically stolen from her. Annabel functions as stepmother, but a better one than you usually get, although will she have the strength to save both girls?
5 Inside (2007)
La Fabrique de Films
These are all thriller and horror films, but this new wave French horror (original title À l’intérieur) is probably best avoided if you’re pregnant. Expectant mother Sarah (Alysson Paradis) lost her husband when they were in a car crash, and she has isolated herself to await the baby’s arrival. A woman, played by Beatrice Dalle, shows up at the door knowing more information than a stranger should, and although Sarah calls the police, the woman returns, waking Sarah up with a scissor stab to the stomach. The woman wants Sarah’s baby and is going to stop at nothing to get it. Like other new wave French horror films such as Martyrs, Inside is an unabashed bloodbath, but one with some compelling things about how far someone will go to have a child, or save their own child’s life.
4 The Bad Seed (1956)
Warner Bros. Pictures
This 1956 psychological thriller stars a scrubbed and shiny Patty McCormack as Rhoda, by all accounts the perfect little girl. She dotes on her military father, and promises to be extra good for her mother, Nancy Kelly, while he’s away. She’s a straight A-student with not a hair out of place, always looking to be helpful and complimentary, always doing as she’s told… or is there maybe something just a tiny bit off about the sugary-sweet Rhoda? It’s a hard thing for a mother to accept about her child, and we’re not talking about a few white lies here and there; it’s possible that Rhoda is in the frame for murder after a little boy drowns at the school picnic, and there are one or two incidents in the past that also might require further investigation. As Rhoda’s mother wrestles with reality, there’s some fascinating stuff here about nature vs. nurture, and whether some family traits might not skip a generation on the way down.
3 The Others (2001)
Studio Canal
Grace, played by Nicole Kidman, exists for her children. Their photosensitivity means she must protect them from any form of natural light, although this concern can get pushed aside by the fear that there are somehow other mysterious people in the house. It has a lot in common with Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, and the terrifying Deborah Kerr adaptation, The Innocents: a woman all alone with her charges, trying to protect them from something that has become wildly unmanageable. There is nowhere to take refuge, no one to turn to, which tracks with the loneliness that can come with being a mother, especially a mother on her own (another single mom!) Eventually the true enemy becomes clear, and Grace must look at herself clearly for the first time.
2 We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Curzon Artificial Eye
Lynne Ramsay’s thriller is a dark exploration of the worst of motherhood, based on Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel. Tilda Swinton is the perfect choice as a mother who can’t connect with her child, for reasons that no one else seems to understand. The audience can see that Kevin is manipulative and vengeful towards his mother from a young age, but he can flip on the charm switch with anyone else. No one believes his mother, so what can she do? She was never a natural mother, so is his behavior her fault? Is there anything she could have done to stop the violent events that the audience can clearly see coming?
1 Carrie (1976)
United Artists
Piper Laurie’s turn as Carrie White’s single (of course) mother, Margaret, might be the most memorable in the group. She is not what you would call a good mother. She’s a religious fanatic who deliberately keeps the facts of life from her daughter, resulting in a shower scene that is the stuff of adolescent nightmares. She locks her in closets for prayer time; berates her basically for having a body that is going through natural biological processes. On the one hand, you can find a little sympathy for Margaret, who obviously was given these lessons in her own upbringing with no one to tell her otherwise. On some level, she is trying to protect her daughter. On the other hand, she’s one degree of separation away from being responsible for the mass carnage that is Carrie’s high school prom.
