We’ve all been there: you type “Transsiberian” into a streaming service once and spend the next three weeks fighting off the Transformers franchise. Botched film recommendations have been a thing since the VHS era. Remember the episode of One Foot in the Grave when Victor Meldrew discovers Mrs Warboys is a Mork & Mindy fan and accidentally rents Alien? Given the prevalence of the “because you watched …” algorithm, here are seven films tagged “mother” that should be avoided at all costs this Sunday. Do not add to basket, and be prepared to lunge for the remote should mum’s thumb hover over play. Caution: spoilers.
Robin Redbreast (1970)
With a title like that, you’d be forgiven for thinking this feature-length BBC drama is a Springwatch spinoff. Possibly a show that celebrates the unspoiled gardens of yesteryear? It does, kind of. Jilted script editor Anna Cropper moves to an isolated cottage to escape from London’s “lecherous owls”. Her friends seem concerned at her pre-Good Life opting-out. Isn’t this the 70s equivalent of giving up wifi? But breaking convention is the least of our heroine’s worries when she hears wind like “voices, or a child”, and finds a halved marble on her windowsill. This unsettling drama about starting again in middle age turns into a rural chiller that foreshadows The Wicker Man. If you stick this one on, expect a traumatised mum whose only respite will come during the scenes where stuntman Andy Bradford performs nude karate in the woodlands.
Only God Forgives (2013)
On the surface, a safe bet. Glowing Thai location, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ryan Gosling in stubble-and-staring mode. But these ingredients combine to form a poison: within minutes of checking into her hotel, a spectacularly potty-mouthed KST is dropping the C-bomb and comparing her sons’ genitals (“Julian’s was never small, but Billy’s was … oh, it was enormous!”). When she’s off screen, the evangelical Lt Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) is lopping people’s hands off , and TV’s Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) is drooling over underage prostitutes. Mum might need company for this one – we recommend taking as many toilet trips as you can get away with, unless you’re comfy with oedipal vivisection sequences.
White Heat (1949)
You can’t go wrong with a Jimmy Cagney film, surely? Unless it’s one that implies mum’s method of parenting shares traits with Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), who raised a murderous, pyromaniac gang-banger. Just because it regularly features on Turner Classic Movies doesn’t mean this is a safe film to cue up before the restaurant. You don’t want the special lady thinking she’s being likened to a woman who dismisses her son’s psychotic rages as due to “cold mountain air”, and takes a little too long with head massages.
Tangled (2010)
A Trojan horse from Disney. They replace the wicked stepmother trope with Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy), a villainess who does so much gaslighting BP could build a rig around her. Convincing the heroine that she is second best is one thing, but kidnapping her as a baby, raising her in the forest, using her hair as a paternoster lift and insisting that everyone outside of the tower is a sociopath? And then singing about it? This may send mixed messages about mum’s grounding technique. Do not screen until 12 March.
The Babadook (2014)
A family-centred Aussie folk story? Sort of like Dot and the Kangaroo, then? Not quite. Essie Davis is the recently widowed Amelia Vanek, whose grief is causing her to see monsters. Even Father Karras would run a mile from the croaking, top hat-sporting bogeyman who visits her. So perhaps it’s no surprise that she eventually succumbs to his power, becoming an ink-vomiting monster who has to be knocked out and chained up in the basement by her son. If you put this on for mother, she may overanalyse. Don’t be surprised if the grandkids are given pop-up books for Christmas in return.
Psycho 2 (1983)
The Bateses don’t make for ideal family entertainment – no one’s going to watch any of the Psycho films for their exploration of motherly love. But Richard Franklin’s underrated sequel to the 1960 mould-breaker is more than worthy of its “mother” tag: it trebles the previous film’s number of mums, with each doing some very twisted things in the name of shielding their children. If this happens to be airing while yours is having her tea, try to resist the temptation to pick up your coal shovel.
28 Weeks Later (2007)
If you’re not a zombie aficionado, you might think the title belies a romcom about those tricky first two trimesters. But Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s movie has a more grisly take on the theme of incubation. At the height of an outbreak of the “rage” virus, a mum (Catherine McCormack) was abandoned in a house filling with frenzied strangers by her husband, Robert Carlyle. But she survived! Can she forgive him? Or will she perpetrate a second outbreak by giving her cowardly bloke a contaminated snog? He probably deserves it. Expect mum to throw things at the screen every time he appears.
Threads (1984)
Thanks to a combination of the Doomsday Clock, a newly released US Blu-Ray and a restored UK special edition, Threads is trending. So there’s a serious chance mum might stumble across “the most terrifying film of all time” when seeking out Phantom Thread. If that happens, don’t take any chances – grab the remote from her hand, yank the power from the screen and run. Because, unless you’re harder than Matilda’s Mrs Trunchbull, Mick Jackson’s film – which follows a couple who fall pregnant on the eve of a nuclear apocalypse – is scarring. The world’s leaders decide to use their red buttons, and everything burns, shatters and rots. Governments included. Even if you’ve endured childbirth, Threads is still one hell of an ordeal. Expect it to mess mum and the rest of the family up more than universal credit.
