This past Sunday, we honored the great mothers (and grandmothers, and stepmothers, and foster mothers, and maternal mentors) in our lives.
We handed them bouquets of fresh flowers, ribbon-wrapped boxes of chocolates, glittery cards, sparkly jewelry. We sat down for a nice meal together, or sent them a fond text, or called them for a long chat.
Most of all, we savored the love and warmth those motherly figures have given us over the years, and did what we could to reflect it on them.
Of course, unfortunately, not everyone has been blessed with a positive or healthy relationship with their mother. Not all moms are wonderful and worthy of Hallmark cards.
But hopefully very few real-world mothers are as bad as this Rogue’s Gallery of Horrific Horror Moms, 11 of the very worst film has to offer. So if your relationship with your mum is fraught, take comfort that it’s not as terrible as:
11. Mama (”Mama”)
Sisters Victoria and Lily have had a really rough time of it. First, their father goes mad after losing the family’s fortune, and kills their mother. Then he drives them to a cabin in the woods, fully intending to wipe out the rest of the family and attracting the attention of a deadly entity …
Three years later, the young girls (now more than a little feral), are rescued from the cabin and turned over to their uncle Luke. It seems miraculous they’ve survived so long, but it turns out it may’ve been more demonic than divine intervention: a possessive force known only as Mama saved the girls from their murderous father, but refuses to let them go now living relatives want to claim them.
10. Erica Sayers (”Black Swan”)
Stage mothers are always a little terrifying, but Erica’s oppressive expectations and demanding control of her ballerina daughter Nina are surely at the heart of the prima’s rapid descent into self-destructive madness.
9. Nancy Loomis (”Scream 2″)
Don’t you hate it when awful people refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions? Nancy Loomis manipulates the unhinged Mickey into helping her murder various co-eds in order to torment – and attempt to destroy – Sidney Prescott because she blames the girl for her son Billy’s crimes and death.
But, in fact, it was her own abandonment of her family that helped fuel Billy’s psychosis, and clearly the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. This awful mom more than earns the bullets she catches.
8. Grace Stewart (”The Others”)
For most of the movie, you really feel for Grace. She lost her husband in the recently ended WWII. Her poor kids have a photosensitive disease that keeps them locked inside their dark, remote house, and the new servants are behaving oddly. As the strange events continue to mount, it’s no wonder the poor woman becomes frantic.
However, the full truth of why Grace’s children must avoid sunlight and who the real “Others” are reveal that Mrs. Stewart has crossed a line no mother should ever cross …
7. Joan Crawford (”Mommie Dearest”)
Based on a controversial biography by the legendary actress’ adopted daughter, this melodramatic domestic horror story not only cemented the mantra “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!” in pop culture – it also painted Crawford as an abusive, alcoholic harpy.
We’ll never know for sure whether Christina Crawford accurately depicted her childhood, merely exaggerated her mother’s sins, or even created them from whole cloth. But a lot of us will always remember Faye Dunaway’s histrionic performance as a wide-eyed caricature of Crawford.
6. Corinne Dollanganger/The grandmother (”Flowers in the Attic”)
Gotta say: Of all the moms/grandmas in fiction, the Dollangangers are two of the most reprehensible. I don’t care what your justification is – you can’t keep your kids locked in an attic for years, feed them arsenic-laced doughnuts, and call them sinful “devil’s spawn.” That Corinne’s motivation for all of this madness is securing an inheritance and new husband? DEPLORABLE.
5. Norma Bates (”Psycho”/”Bates Motel”)
Norma may be long dead by the events of “Psycho,” but the number she did on son Norman – which we see in full detail in the prequel series “Bates Motel” – obviously warped him beyond all saving.
Enmeshment and persistent abuse results in insidious repercussions, like fracturing a young man’s personality and driving him to viciously kill any woman he feels attracted to while keeping his mother’s mummified corpse in his house.
4. Pamela Voorhees (”Friday the 13th”)
Usually, it’s laudable when a parent is devoted to their child. But Pam goes just a wee bit too far in her quest to avenge her darling baby boy, Jason, who drowned at summer camp while the counselors were busy making out. The teens she murders weren’t even at Camp Crystal Lake when Jason died! Talk about misplaced anger/unhealthy coping mechanisms.
3. Vera Cosgrove (”Braindead”/”Dead Alive”)
Norma Bates may’ve encouraged codependence with her son, but Vera literally maintains a stranglehold over hers. Poor Lionel just wants to take the cute girl from the corner shop to the zoo and hold hands; but when domineering mama Vera follows to spy on them, she ends up bitten by a Sumatran Rat Monkey, which turns her into a flesh-eating zombie.
Not even death lets Lionel escape his mother’s clutches. When she turns ghoul, he’s forced to imprison her in the basement, and ultimately face her in a gory battle royale when she mutates into a giant monster that tries to swallow him whole. Vera’s picture could be in the dictionary under “Jocasta Complex,” no doubt.
2. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (“The Manchurian Candidate”)
A good mom always has your best interests at heart. She wants good things for you, and will do anything she can to protect you from harm. So Eleanor’s heartless willingness to have her war-traumatized son brainwashed and turned into a KGB assassin to pursue her own self-interests is reprehensible.
Of all of the takes on this character, Angela Lansbury’s remains the greatest – and creepiest, considering the sexual undertones she imbues her performance with. Because it’s not bad enough she’s letting a shadowy cabal turn her kid into a disposable weapon. Ugh.
1. Margaret White (”Carrie”)
All of the previous moms are undeniably horrendous, but I had to put Margaret at No. 1 because – of all of these Awful, Terrible, No-Good Moms – she’s perhaps the most realistic and plausible one.
Her religious zealotry is all too familiar to too many folks, and the verbal and physical abuse she heaps on her daughter Carrie for simply existing will ring true to plenty of queer folks in the audience.
Piper Laurie’s frantic performance in the original film is genuinely harrowing. And her violent end is, honestly, pretty dang cathartic: she made her daughter’s home life a living hell, when the poor girl was already suffering at school, and then tried to murder her. She definitely didn’t deserve a WORLD’S GREATEST MOM mug and tennis bracelet.
ANGIE BARRY is a contributing columnist for Shaw Media. To suggest future topics for The B-List, which covers topics in pop culture, history and literature, contact her at newsroom@mywebtimes.com.