There are many scary moms in Hollywood, but British cinema and English characters have delivered an altogether chilling take on motherhood. These mothers are either overprotective parents willing to do anything or psychopaths in plain sight who are smiling behind the scenes.
Vera Drake (Vera Drake)
At face value, Vera is a loving, hardworking mother. She has a dangerous secret life as an illegal abortionist, though, putting her family’s liberation and safety in great danger.
Grace Stewart (The Others)
Grace is a very devout mom who lives on her own in a secluded mansion. She locks all the doors and turns the lights off in total darkness, turning their secure home into a terrifying prison and keeping her light-sensitive children safe at all costs.
Chaining up Ma Manta (Attack the Block)
Ma Manta is the fearless matriarch of a hard-up and down South London council estate, and some people wouldn’t like to be in her way. As aliens invade her neighborhood, she is a deadly threat because survival comes first.
Celia (The Crying Game)
As a high-stakes IRA operative in London, Celia balances her life as a mother. Politically passionate, her icy and calculated decisions make her deadly to anyone in her vicinity.
Mrs Wadsworth (The Baby)
Mrs. Wadsworth lives in a quiet neighborhood and has an extremely twisted household. She treats her grown adult son like a real baby in a crib. She is a killer matriarch and makes her grown son live like a baby.
Queen Gorgo (300)
With a commanding English presence, Queen Gorgo is a mother whose sole aim is to ensure her son’s royal future by using everything but kindness. When a corrupt politician threatens to kill her family, she kills him herself.
The Matriarch (The Baby of Mâcon)
This is a character from a cynical, historical world and a personification of greed at its worst. She takes on the role of fully commercializing a purportedly holy baby and sets off a terrifying chain reaction of violence through the community.
The Queen (The Lion in Winter)
Motherhood becomes the game of political chess for Eleanor of Aquitaine. In her mind, a battle is raging; she has three sons who are her weapons, and she pits them against one another for the throne of the King.
Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd)
The kind of mother that Mrs. Lovett is to a young orphan boy is twisted. She is happy to assist a serial killer in covering up his terrible crimes by making his victims into meat pies.
Mama (Dredd)
Mama is a mean and cold-blooded drug dealer who controls a large 200-story apartment complex. She will kill thousands to keep her empire safe, treating her own criminal family as family.
About the Author
