The horror movies this year have been all over the place. Hulu has given us some terrible thriller movies but it has also given us some of my favorite. I sat down to watch Matriarch, which is listed as a horror movie, and…I think that Hulu doesn’t know the definition of horror.
Laura (Jemima Rooper) is a bit of a mess. She has a decent job but she is an alcoholic addicted to cocaine. When she accidentally overdoses, she wakes up to find herself with a strange new affliction that causes black goo to seep out of her. After receiving a call from her awful mother, Celia (Kate Dickie), she goes home to try to figure everything out. What she figures out is that her family and her hometown isn’t what she thought it was.
This was probably the slowest movie with the worst payoff I have had this Halloween movie season. It took forever for the story to get where it was going. I know the writers wanted to hammer home how messed up Laura is and how absolutely terrible Celia was to her but they went a little overboard. The whole movie is just under 2 hours long. Most of the time is spent with Celia rocking between trying to murder her own child and cooing at her in an attempt to earn forgiveness. We never get a sense that Celia is anything but an awful person and it isn’t until the last 15-30 minutes of the movie that we get any sort of answers for anything.
Also, I’m not sure why this is listed as horror. There are no horror elements here. I think we’re supposed to be scared of the black goo but the only thing it does is seep out of eyes, ears, and noses. It doesn’t seem to make anyone behave any differently. There aren’t even jump scares, which can be a very lame element of horror but that would at least validate the category. Even the big reveal at the end isn’t particularly horror. Well, maybe it is if you haven’t watched a lot of horror or get scared very easily.
Sadly, I can’t recommend Matriarch. I couldn’t find a single redeeming quality of it and I’m sorry I wasted my time watching it. There are much better movies out there. Especially if you are looking for actual horror.