THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER: 3 ½ STARS. “McCarthy lets her freak flag fly.”
SYNOPSIS: In “The Voices of Our Mother,” a new gothic family drama now playing in theatres, a death in the family revives old animosities and secrets, leaving a group of estranged siblings to wonder if their situation is natural or supernatural.
CAST: Mark O’Brien, Sheila McCarthy, Georgina Reilly, Carolina Bartczak, Alex Ozerov-Meyer, and Anna Ferguson.
REVIEW: A mix of family drama and the supernatural, “The Voices of Our Mother” takes geriatric health issues and gives them a demonic spin.
When we first meet family matriarch Harriet Scaflen (Sheila McCarthy) her health has taken a turn after the death of his 95-year-old mother.
Her four children, William (Mark O’Brien, who also wrote and directs), Annika (Georgina Reilly), Therese (Carolina Bartczak) and Martin (Alex Ozerov-Meyer), are summoned to the family home to figure out next steps. Trouble is, they are estranged from her and each other.
Despite their mother’s presiding physician’s claims that she “appears to be healthy,” something must be wrong because mom has never behaved like this before.
A story of evil awoken from resentment, revenge, grief and intergenerational trauma, “The Voices of Our Mother” has a great ensemble, but it’s Sheila McCarthy’s wild performance that sticks.
The “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing” hands in an uninhibited performance that brings her inner demon to the fore. She’s no stranger to horror, having appeared in “Anything for Jackson,” a dark horror comedy about ancient spells and a “reverse-exorcism,” but her work here brings an intensity that is truly disturbing. It’s also interesting to see the usual trope of a child possessed by evil flipped to an elderly matriarch.
Writer, director and actor Mark O’Brien takes a relatable situation, a family brought together to care for a parent, and weaves in ideas of intergenerational trauma and family secrets as a catalyst for a slow-burn story of ancestral evil and possession.
Add to that atmospheric sound design and some wild practical effects and you get “The Family Stone” meets “The Exorcist” with a side of “Hereditary” for extra impact.
“The Voices of Our Mother’s” slow burn ignites when McCarthy lets her freak flag fly but it also does a nice job of blending family dysfunction with the supernatural.
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