MA **

We've been here a hundred times before and yet this kind of schlock-horror is still ridiculously entertaining even if the taste it leaves can usually turn more than a little sour. You know the story; sad, lonely and obviously psychopathic female befriends flathunter/new mom/injured writer or in this case, a group of horny teens and then makes their life hell. Here she's outwardly sweet, if much too accommodating, Octavia Spencer, "Ma" as she becomes known to the boys and girls she takes under her wing and she'll go to any lengths to keep them close.

Tate Taylor, who directed Spencer to an Oscar in "The Help", has fun with the over-familiar material and Spencer milks it for all its worth; the teens are fine and other grown-ups include Luke Evans, (one of the dads), Juliette Lewis, (now old enough to be one of the moms), and Allison Janney as Spencer's hard-as-nails employer. There's nothing new here but it's good to see a teen-orientated chiller that's not founded on the supernatural and even if we are invited to stick the knife in Ma by the film's end, Spencer's gloriously over-the-top performance goes a long way to lifting this a notch or two out of the ordinary.