Sean Parker
The first trailer has dropped for Sony Pictures and Raimi Productions film Umma, featuring Golden Globe award winner Sandra Oh. The film tells the story of a mother, Amanda (Oh), and daughter (The Haunting of Sharon Tate‘s Fivel Stewart) team of farmers, whose lives become paranormally upended when an estate representative bestows Amanda with a box containing the remains of her recently deceased estranged mother. The box comes with a warning that the spirit residing in the box will only grow angrier the longer the contents remain in the box. Amanda and her daughter begin to suffer the same strain in their relationship as Amanda did with her mother; Amanda starts to fear that she may be turning into her mother.
Umma‘s trailer contains many horrifying sequences, from bee swarms in the attic to a scene involving a throng of corpse-like hands. The most notable moment in the film’s trailer may be the presence of a nine-tailed fox. Fans of the HBO series Lovecraft Country will remember the kumiho from the episode “Meet Me in Daegu.” With only an image to go on, it’s uncertain whether the mythology of Umma will follow along the same lines. Kumiho appear in Korean folktales, disguising themselves as beautiful women looking to seduce men and gain access to feast on their vital organs. While other cultures have their versions of the nine-tailed fox, the Kumiho is almost exclusively seen as a malignant presence.
The main theme of Umma looks to be the horror of turning into your parents. There are plenty of values and child-rearing tactics I hope never to press upon my children, should I ever have them. While I’ve come to understand where they came from, twenty-year-old kids raising kids, there is always room for improvement. This aspect of Umma works in reverse with a mother-daughter relationship that starts well and begins tearing apart. From where I stand, potentially as a hand-me-down curse in the film, the idea is genuinely wicked pressing generational malevolence that may never end.
I’m a huge supporter of horror folktales, and Iris K. Shim’s trailer for the supernatural mother-daughter bonding nightmare is packed with ominous atmosphere and disturbing glimpses. With Sandra Oh leading the incredible cast that includes We Are What We Are‘s Odeya Rush, The Blazing World‘s Dermot Mulroney, and The Purge‘s Tom Yi, Umma looks like one worth checking out when it hits theaters next week.
Umma will release exclusive to theaters on March 18.
