Mum and Son’s Review
Rebecca McCallum has managed to pack a lot of theory into a small package with her release of Mum and Sons. This in depth look at mothers and the relationships with their male children, gives you a glimpse at some of horror’s most famous duo. The essays focus on three films that have shaped horror history and have taught us how to look at the genre differently. The Babadook, Hereditary, and Psycho, all consist of mothers (both alive and dead) who have some level of fraught relationship with their sons. By examining through each stage of life, Rebbeca has brought to the forefront a wholly different lens with which to view these films. It is not new that we are reading into the depths of these films, they have been studied since their releases. But by shifting the gaze from the internals of the main characters and focusing on their relationships with their off-springs, we are gifted a new angle.
In childhood most perspectives fall on the child, putting the parent at fault. But 2014’s The Babadook, takes control of that narrative and highlights the feelings that women can go through after experiencing not only complete loss of a spouse but the birth of a child. Conflicted feelings of guilt and anger that she now has a child but at the loss of the love of her life. Rebecca highlights the relationship model that has been used and flipped to reacclimate us into this world of loss that Amelia is experiencing. What should be a nurturing time in Amelia’s life, Rebecca points out how she keeps her son Samuel at a distance, treading on caution. She speaks on the tension and uncomfortability this causes, and ultimately leaves her vulnerable for a creature like the Babadook to take hold of. While this movie is studied in mass through the mother son relationship, Rebecca has given us a deeper lens into the psychosis of motherhood.
When continuing the journey into adolescence, we are given a critical look at the dynamics in Ari Aster’s Hereditary. She compares the link of death in this film, that looms over the plot, with that of Psycho. Although used in different ways, the plot of death controls how Annie operates in space with her children and husband. Keeping secrets and trying to heal, she later falls down deeper into secrets that were not told to her. Norman too operates within the realm of secrets that stem from death. Rebecca brings to light the connection in key ways that it forces the lightbulbs to illuminate in your mind.
Instead of speaking on these films in isolation with one another, Rebecca constructs her essays in small chapters each dealing with the topics that bridge all three of these films together, despite their countries of origins and years made. We are shown the universality of feelings that surround raising life and being a mother. Bringing forth topics that we are just now beginning to understand. By presenting them in this way, Rebecca has enabled us to fully understand the complexities within the stories and larger topics that umbrella the themes. Her essay’s would not be complete without an in depth link to a Hitchcock classic, almost a signature of Rebecca’s research work, rounding out the essays with notes on the classic Psycho. This piece shaped the way we as modern horror fans view the genre. There is before Psycho and after.
I recommend Mum and Son’s to anyone who holds these films close or those that know just the basics. As it lends itself to both a new angle on old classics and peer behind the curtain to understand these films more. I look forward to what comes next for Rebbeca and her writings in this manner and I eagerly await an extended version of this book, (because I just want to hear more of her perspective on this topic!).
