3 Terrifying Moms in Horror to Stream this Weekend

Hey Creepy Catalogers,

Last week our editor Chris Catt outlined the best (and worst) moms in horror history. This Mother’s Day, I’m rewatching my favorite creepy mom movies that are streaming this weekend:

Hereditary (2018). Streaming on Showtime. Probably the scariest mom in recent horror history, is Toni Collette’s character, Annie Graham, in Hereditary. Annie is not a super mom at the beginning of the movie when her family is somewhat normal and as her family deteriorates her parenting becomes horrific. Take a look at the memorable “I am your mother!” scene: (Warning, if you haven’t seen it yet, this scene contains major plot spoilers)

Carrie (1976). Streaming on Prime. Margaret White is one of the ultimate bad moms in horror. She neglects her daughter so much that when Carrie White has her first period at the late age of 16, she has no idea what is happening to her and the other girls at school have yet another reason to bully the shy girl. Psychotic and obsessed with Christianity, Margaret White tells Carrie she must have sinned and physically abuses her.

The 2013 remake of Carrie with Julianne Moore as Margaret White is also on Prime. It’s not quite as good as the original, but it is a good horror movie.

Mother’s Day (2010). Streaming on Tubi. After failing to rob a bank, three brothers discover their mother lost her home to foreclosure. The new owners are having a party when the brothers arrive to hold everyone hostage. When mother arrives, the real party starts.

Honorable mention:

While it is not a horror movie, I saw Mommie Dearest (1981) as a child and it scared the SHIT out of me. Faye Dunaway plays an absolutely unhinged Joan Crawford based on the memoir of Joan’s adopted daughter, Christina Crawford (who was later disinherited from Joan’s will). In one of the film’s many iconic scenes, Joan discovers some of her children’s clothing hanging on wire hangers. Because Joan Crawford’s parents were dry cleaners, the wire hangers remind her of the poverty she grew up in. She has a breakdown, trashes her daughter’s room, and beats her with one of the hangers. Was everyone supposed to find this movie low key relatable or do I need to talk to my therapist about this?

Here are six terrifying minutes of cinema as Joan Crawford (played by Faye Dunaway) discovers wire hangers in her children’s closet:

This week in horror:

• Florence Pugh and Harry Style’s psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, finally has a trailer.
• Sam Raimi says the new Evil Dead movie will be “terrifying”.
• There’s a crowd-funded “adult” version of Scooby Doo.
• A found footage Mothman movie is coming.
• Legendary horror filmmaker David Cronenberg is about to drop his first horror film in 8 years at Cannes.
• The best horror streaming on Netflix in May 2022.

Creepy reads:

• A comprehensive guide to the worst (and best) moms in horror cinema.
• Remember the made-for-TV movie A Killer Among Friends (1992) with Tiffani Theissen? It’s based on a true story.
• Fun facts about Macaulay Culkin’s tour-de-force The Good Son (1993).
• The best horror movies of 2022 (so far).
• The dark origin of “Bloody Mary”.

Happy streaming and stay spooky!!