Is everything old becoming new again with these scary lady movies?

Scary movies crop up at all times of the year but this spring, I'm noticing a new species of fearful film flowers with a female driven focus.

For one, Greta is set to bloom in theaters this March, starring Chloe Grace Moretz as Frances, a young woman who returns a lost purse to the title character(Isabelle Huppert) and strikes up a friendship with the lonely woman.

Since Frances has recently lost her own mother, this new relationship quickly takes on a maternal vibe,which wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that Greta's motherly instincts have a lethal side to them.The film is directed by Neil Jordan, who has done stylish scare flicks before(Interview With The Vampire) and so far, there's good advance word on this tightly wound thriller:

Meanwhile in May, Octavia Spencer is springing forward as Ma, aka Sue Ann, a reclusive woman who is at first reluctant to get involved with a group of local teenagers asking her to buy them booze.

However, she not only picks up some alcohol for them but lets the kids party in her house on a regular basis. Sue Ann does have some rules, including no swearing and having a sober driver but the big one is that they are to stay in the basement and not go upstairs.

This seems like a sweet deal to the teens, especially Maggie(Diana Silvers) who requested the booze buy from "Ma" in the first place. However, this free ride to fun times does come with a price and it's more than any of them imagined it would be.

Tate Taylor is the director and co-writer on this movie and he's worked with Octavia Spencer before,particularly on The Help, so this appears to be a project created with her in mind. That's great as she's a talented actor who has played plenty of nice ladies onscreen and seeing her as a Big Bad sounds like frightening fun:

 While these movies do sound like a scary good time, I couldn't help but wonder "why do these "older women going after the young ones" plot lines sound so familiar?" It's like hearing a snatch of old music in the background of a new song that you can't quite identify right away.

Then it hit me-this appears to be a revival of what has been called in the past "hagsploitation" or "psycho-biddy", where older actresses turn to the horror genre as menacing leading ladies. Many feel this started with the 1963 camp classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, featuring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

The surprise success of that film lead to a wave of other similar scare flicks through out the mid to late sixties and early seventies and while most of those did have their terrifying divas stalk prey close to their own age, a few of the movies had the younger generation in their sights as well.

 For example, former Hollywood diva Tallulah Bankhead played a dour and deadly matriarch in 1965's Die,Die,My Darling!(known as Fanatic in the UK) where she held potential daughter-in-law Stephanie Powers captive on her remote estate. Sure, there are numerous differences between this and Greta but the theme of an older mother figure tormenting a surrogate daughter is powerfully the same:

As to Ma, the closest film in this genre that I could find to compare it with is Who Slew Auntie Roo? from 1971 with Shelley Winters in the title role.

Winters plays a seemingly well-off widow who brings orphan children to her mansion for the holidays but becomes obsessed with a brother(yes, that is the kid from Oliver!) and sister who gate crash the party. The little girl reminds Roo of her deceased daughter who she happens to keep in the attic.

Most of the movie is a weird riff off of the Hansel and Gretel story to say the least and while the young folks in danger here are decidedly younger than the terrorized teens in Ma, some of this sinister silly story line fits into this theme. Not to mention that like Spencer, Winters was also an Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress years before she appeared in this freaky fear fest:

To be fair, Greta and Ma clearly are made with bigger budgets and far less camp than those earlier films. Also, while many of the actresses back then went to this genre as a chance to still do some film work well after the heyday of their careers, Spencer and Huppert are well established women in their field and many would consider them to be in their prime.

What worries me is that if one or both of these movies does well, the films that follow could easily slide into the "crazy old lady" stereotype and as a gal who is no spring chicken herself, it's not a welcome reflection to see showcased in the pop culture mirror right now.

Then again, this might lead to better roles for women in horror-Kathy Bates did win a Best Actress Oscar for Misery after all-and I just hope that any other Hollywood diva that decides to get scary in the near future does so with the best of their talents on command but not entirely without a sense of humor: