The relationships between mothers and their children are often the focal point of many horror movies. Whether they’re painted as the villain, the hero, or anything in between, there’s no denying the importance these maternal relationships can have on the plot of a horror film and the characters surrounding them.
In her new horror analysis pocketbook, Mums & Sons (2022), Rebecca McCallum studies the importance of relationships between mothers and sons throughout the three main stages of life – childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. By focussing on three key horror movies spanning the past sixty years, Mums & Sons looks at Psycho (1960), The Babadook (2014), and Hereditary (2018). Rebecca studies the similarities between each film by discussing seven key focus points showing that even when the set-up, plot, and conclusion of a story are very different, the central strands of the mother and son relationship remain very similar.
Having watched all three of the discussed films multiple times, I was excited to dive into Mums & Sons and read Rebecca’s study of the mother-child relationship. The attention to detail in this pocketbook is amazing, with Rebecca picking up minute details across all three films, focusing on particular scenes or lines of dialogue to show the strong connection between these three very different yet connected films.
It’s fascinating all the points that Rebecca focuses on in Mums & Sons, allowing her work to stand out as completely unique from the other horror essays and books that have been written about similar subjects, and I can only imagine how many times she must have watched each of these films to be able to write about them in such a detailed and analytical manner.
Points which particularly stood out and tickled my geeky horror brain were things like the secrets that the characters across all three films chose to carry which end up warping their relationships, the importance of the cellar in The Babadook and Psycho versus the attic in Hereditary, and the double lives that many of the characters lead.
I, personally, am obsessed with the roles of mothers in horror movies, which I explore in my Mother of Fears column for Ghouls Magazine, so I adored everything about Mums & Sons. It’s clear how much hard work and research Rebecca has put into this book, and it was so exciting to read an expert analysis of three classic horror movies from this particular angle.
Every point Rebecca makes is backed up with amazing examples, as she weaves the threads of these three movies together in such a way that you start to think of them almost as a trilogy that was always intended to be this connected. I can see myself returning to Mums & Sons again and again to dive deeper into each chapter to pour over every piece of connected analysis.
Mums & Sons is Rebecca McCallum’s first feature-length publication, and considering the expert knowledge displayed in this book, I’m super excited to see what she does next! Mums & Sons does an amazing job of showing that mothers aren’t always the clear-cut villain or hero in horror movies when it comes to the role they play both in the film and within their family.
REVIEW SCORE – 5/5
Mums & Sons can be purchased from Plastic Brain Press here.
Little Red Horror 