All the Moments in Ma That Made Me Say "What the F*ck?", Ranked

OK, we'll start off with the least surprising aspect of the movie, since the highly revealing trailer spells this out from the get-go. After Sue Anne/Ma buys the core group of teens alcohol for the first time — Maggie, Derrell, Andy, Haley, and Chaz — she invites them back to the basement of her home so that they can "drink safely" and "party like rockstars" without her worrying about them drunk driving (she takes their keys away and will only let them leave if they pass her version of a sobriety test). Maggie and Derrell are somehow the only ones who express concerns about this strange older woman letting them get wasted in her dingy basement. Do the Saw movies not exist in this universe, or . . . ?!

Very few horror movie villains are demented and evil simply for the sake of being demented and evil, right? It's usually about getting revenge for some tragic event in their past, and in Ma's case, it involves a group of classmates who still live in town and now have high school-aged kids of their own (two of whom, Andy and Maggie, are unlucky enough to be Ma's original drinking buddies).

As we come to find out, Andy's father, cocky jock Ben (Luke Evans), once convinced a shy, quiet, teenage Sue Ann that he had a thing for her. He invited her out to parties, flirted with her, and eventually asked her to meet him in the janitor's closet at school to hook up. Since it was pitch black in the closet, Sue Ann doesn't realise until it's too late and they've walked back into the well-lit hallway that she was tricked into hooking up with a different guy entirely. Ben and a large group of students are waiting outside the closet to cruelly point and laugh as she runs away.

Sue Anne was never able to overcome that event in her childhood. Even though she'd go on to get married (and divorced) and have a daughter, her emotional development never progressed beyond that embarrassment and trauma, leading her to become a twisted, vengeful version of the innocent girl she once was. Now, is that an excuse to sew a girl's lips together and start bashing people over the head with irons? Um, no. Ever heard of therapy, Sue Anne? Maybe a kickboxing class to get out that aggression?

Yes, Allison freakin' Janney is in this movie, meaning Octavia Spencer isn't the only Oscar winner involved in this thrilling disaster. Janney, who also costarred with Spencer in 2011's The Help, pops up throughout the film as a blonde, foul-mouthed, short-tempered vet who Sue Ann works for. She got laughs every time she huffed onscreen to bark orders in the theatre I saw the movie in, so as far as sight gags are concerned, this is as brilliant as it is dumbfounding.

Ma begins with mother-daughter pair Erica (Juliette Lewis) and Maggie (Diana Silvers) moving back to Erica's small hometown with a single, tiny U-Haul holding their belongings. They've also brought along their ageing yellow lab, Louis, which immediately made my stomach clench — a dog in a horror movie? Come on. Frankly I didn't expect poor Louis to make it to the end. However, in a truly shocking turn of events, he does! But he doesn't come out completely unscathed.

As previously mentioned, Sue Anne works as a nurse at a small animal hospital, which is where she's able to steal many of the drugs used to knock out the idiotic, unsuspecting teens who populate the film. And it's also how she finds out that Erica and Maggie have a dog. When it comes time for Sue Anne to teach Ben a lesson that "all men are dogs," she approaches her task literally, sneaking onto Maggie's property in the middle of the night to casually steal a pint of blood from Louis, who's chillin' in the backyard.

Is it a really sad moment for the adorable dog who didn't do anything to deserve Ma's wrath? Yes. But is seeing Sue Anne awkwardly shuffle through the darkness in her bright pink scrubs worth it? Don't tell Louis I said this, but also yes.

Listen, I know Sue Anne is the one who's out here drugging teenagers and luring them into her basement lair, but it really must be said that Haley and Chaz are giant as*holes. Haley not only rudely tells Sue Anne that she needs to "get a man" to her face, but also goes on Snapchat to send a video message telling everyone how crazy Sue Anne is and to blacklist her . . . including Sue Anne. (Her reaction to seeing this video while getting a pedicure is truly a glorious moment in cinematic history.) Shortly after meeting Sue Anne, Chaz gets about one inch away from her face and loudly repeats how much of a loser she is, and that she doesn't even "want to be cool." Anyway.

After Haley tries to oust Sue Anne from the group, she lures them out of town for a two minute in-person conversation where she claims she has pancreatic cancer, which is why she's been acting so strange lately. Because everyone knows typical symptoms of cancer include hitting on teenagers, stealing their jewellery, running people over, and injecting your own child with dangerous medicine! But I digress.

Because a horror movie about a woman trying to get revenge on a bunch of former classmates by murdering their kids isn't crazy enough, Ma also tosses in a Munchausen syndrome by proxy side plot for a little extra flavour. (Have I mentioned how insane this movie is yet?) Enter Genie, Sue Anne's long-suffering teenage daughter who she keeps out of school and locked away in an elaborate cage in their home upstairs, injecting her with all sorts of drugs to keep her docile. Luckily, thanks to a brief interaction with Maggie at the beginning of the film, Genie figures out what her mom really is (f*cking looney toons!) just in time, and deals with it in a mature, responsible way (knocking her mom out with a frying pan, as you do).

This moment is so shocking and brutal that it's wild the movie studio put it in the trailer. Why ruin the surprise?! Still, seeing Sue Anne decide to get revenge on one of her high school tormentors, Mercedes (Missi Pyle), by running her over with her truck and leaving her bloody, mangled body on the side of the road is pretty gruesome . . . especially when it's immediately followed by Sue Anne having a disco music party in her car as she speeds off.

Here's another moment completely given away by the trailer: Ma slips a powerful sedative into all of the teenagers' drinks at one of her parties and proceeds to torture them in increasingly horrifying and bizarre ways while they're unconscious. Like, to punish Chaz for having "perfect, smooth skin" (???) she burns his stomach with a hot iron. And then for Derrell, because there can only be "one" of them (i.e. only one token black friend in the group), she paints his face white. Haley, the loudmouth chatterbox, has her lips graphically sewn shut, and Andy gets stabbed in the stomach with a butcher knife. As for Maggie, who manages not to get drugged and has to witness all of this unfold, Sue Anne tries to hang her from the rafters. (Genie saves her after bashing her mom's head with the frying pan.)

If you thought the photoshoots on America's Next Top Model got weird, you ain't see nothin' yet, my friend. After torturing the kids and positioning them in one seriously f*cked up tableau, Ma has Maggie take her photo with them. (Multiple photos, actually.) Instead of taking that as her opportunity to flee, Maggie obliges her captor. We were rooting for you, girl! We were all rooting for you!

The only good thing about this scene is the fact we get a solid shirtless moment out of Luke Evans. And then Sue Anne has to go and ruin it by chaining him to the bed (after drugging him, dragging him up a multiple flights of stairs, and stripping him) and slicing his wrist wide open, leaving him to bleed out.

Oh, but wait, there's more! Before she kills him, she threatens to cut off his penis, with the camera lingering on her holding it in her hand along with a big ol' knife. Apparently that's not worthy enough punishment for Ben, though, because Sue Anne hooks his arm up to an IV full of dog blood (shout out to Louis, the real, reluctant MVP). Then she slices his veins open! So he's bleeding out and getting filled with dog blood at the same time. All those mentions of "men are dogs" suddenly take on a whole new meaning in this scene, let me tell you.

Here it is, the scene that made me actually say "what the f*ck?!" out loud as it played. Is it the bloodiest scene in the movie? Or the most terrifying? No, but it's definitely the weirdest. It's so awkward and uncomfortable that I felt my body curling in on itself and prayed for my own swift death. So, unsurprisingly, it sets the tone for what's to come later on in the film.

Shortly after inviting the teenagers to her basement for the first time, Chaz decides to suddenly get in the face of an adult stranger who has recently done him a few major favours — buying his underage ass alcohol, giving him a "safe" place to drink it — and yell about how big of a loser she is. "You don't want to be cool," he says, practically spitting in her face.

So, Sue Anne does what any well-adjusted adult woman would: pulls a gun out and forces him to strip completely naked while making fun of him. I truly can't stress enough how bizarre this moment is. You'll just have to either trust me, or go see Ma to witness it for yourself.

Ma is now in theatres.