Sunday Scaries: Umma
The beginning of a spooky series or a one-off? The world may never know!
There’s turning into your mother, and then there’s Umma. Writer/director Iris K. Shim’s film — which had an uneventful theatrical run earlier this year and is now on Netflix — puts a Korean-American spin on filial horror, with Sandra Oh as a beekeeper so traumatized by her mother that she’s never told her own daughter (Fivel Stewart) about her. Reality comes knocking when a long-lost relative tracks down Amanda (birth name: Soo-Hyun) to inform her of her estranged umma’s death and give her the old woman’s remains so she can perform a funereal ritual. Strange things are immediately afoot, with Amanda’s nightmares becoming ever more vivid as she starts hearing — and even seeing — her mother at night. Hollywood has only just begun paying any real attention to the AAPI experience, and likely would have stopped already had the massive success of Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite, and Squid Game not made them realize there’s money in doing so. To say that Umma hasn’t fared nearly as well would be a massive understatement, and while it’s hardly an exemplar of the horror genre one hopes its lukewarm reception doesn’t prevent similar projects from being made in the future. A good-but-not-great horror film incorporating Korean folklore is inherently more interesting than yet another found-footage exercise; it also has a chance of inspiring viewers to watch The Wailing or Burning afterward, leading them down a rabbit hole to one of the world’s most compelling national cinemas. They can’t all be Squid Game or Parasite, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t all get the chance.
Those mothers will wreck you.