I wasn’t sure what to expect from these movies so I watched them without expectations. I liked all three movies even though they were all different to me.
There is the societal view of the mother being in the home taking care of the child. In The Brood, the mom had mental issues and was going through psychiatric treatment so she wasn’t performing her role as mother. The film was hard for me to follow at first. I didn’t trust the psychiatrist so I was suspicious and trying to figure out his role. It was clear he was hiding something. The father’s distrust of the psychiatrist also made me suspicious of him. It took me awhile to figure out his methods and that he was portraying someone in their past so they could work through issues. In Nola’s sessions, we observe her conflict with her mother and being abused by her; we see the conflict with her dad because he didn’t do anything about her mom’s abuse; and we see her being paranoid that the teacher was involved with the ex-husband. It was near the end that I had a better grasp that the psychoplasmic treatment was causing physical transformation as a response to the anger. We finally connect that when she was having the sessions to deal with her anger, the brood was killing the subject of her anger. At the end the doctor redeemed himself by saving the daughter but he was killed by the brood when the ex-husband was visibly disgusted at her birthing her anger in a physically mutated child.
Babadook was scary to me. At first it was fear of the unknown, I didn’t know what the Babadook was but I didn’t want to know. I don’t usually feel sympathetic for characters in horror movies because their dumb choices usually get them further into situation. But with the mom in this film, other than reading the book, it wasn’t evident there was anything she could do to avoid it so I felt bad for her. Like other films, she wasn’t living up to society’s expectations of a mom. She never dealt with her husband’s death so she had her own internal issues that needed to be addressed. Her sister and friends expected her to get over it and get back to “normal”. The mom’s issues caused the son to be a misfit as well but I think he accepted her the way she was because he kept trying to help her see the truth and to protect her. I thought the story line was interesting that the more she denied the Babadook’s existence, the more powerful it became. It was disturbing how the Babadook made her have visions of hurting the son and dog. It was a “aha” moment when you realize the Babadook was a creation of the mom’s fears and anxieties. It’s somewhat understandable since she was constantly having to take care of them and never had time for self-care. In the end, she was able to survive by accepting that she would continue to have anxieties and fears but she had to learn how to deal with them. She had to address them occasionally (feeding the Babadook in the basement) but she couldn’t let it consume her life.
Body alteration was referenced in the reading “Horror and the Monstrous Feminine” as a religious abomination. In Goodnight Mommy, the mom appeared to have had reconstructive surgery trying to maintain a certain appearance. In this film, the sons couldn’t accept their mom’s different behavior as she recovered from surgery. The mom was definitely suspicious especially how she refused to address Lukas or answer questions about him. Early on, my mom asked me if Lukas was real because she said there was no way a mom would treat her children that way. Even when it became clear that Lukas isn’t really there, it still didn’t make sense how she handled their uncertainties with her behavior. The film did a good job of making it seem like the mom was the monster and the boys were the victims so it was a good twist when it actually turned out that the mom was the victim.