[REVIEW] Brooklyn Horror Fest: Mother, May I?

Mother, May I tell you about my favorite film of the entire Brooklyn Horror Film Festival? Mother May I also tell you that it's a horror thriller about mommy issues? Okay, cool, because it’s now time for a review of Laurence Vannicelli’s Mother, May I? (2022).

Mother, May I? had its world premiere at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and has since been picked up for North American distribution by Dark Sky Films, as it should be. Vannicelli has written and directed (with story help from his wife) a thrilling, funny, weird, and poetic film about a couple in a remote house where the ghost who haunts them is, you guessed it, the past. 

Mother, May I? opens on the death of a woman who is the mother of our handsome protag Emmett (played by scream king Kyle Gallner). Emmett inherits the house and brings his fiance, Anya (Holland Roden) to spend time there together to get the house ready for sale. Emmett has been estranged from his mother for his entire adult life, so it comes as a surprise that her house is now his. His mother was a dancer in life and photos of her adorn the walls, leaving her presence throughout the house, but she haunts this story in more ways than one.

The main plot of the film comes about when Anya, not so secretly, begins to act just like Emmett’s mother. She dresses like her, speaks like her, and walks like her for days until she suddenly stops. Is this a game or is this really a possession of Anya? Is the mother still present in this house or is Anya simply playing with her fiance’s emotions?

Along the way, we learn that Emmett’s mother abused her son, both emotionally and by injecting him with a substance that curbed his emotions. Though she claims he had behavioral issues, it’s clear from the film that this was never true and that the injections were a means of control. Anya pulls out the injections again and makes moves to use them on Emmett, further complicating our understanding of whether this is a game or possession.

The film ends with Anya, as herself, in her own body. She sits across from Emmett at the table and they perform an exercise they use together to express their feelings to one another (as Anya is a therapist). It’s evident that while Emmett has a traumatic past caused by his late mother, his relationship with Anya is just as complicated and twisted, regardless of his past. The pair play mind games with one another, and one of those games now consists of a man who needs a maternal figure and a woman who needs someone to care for. Ethics of this dynamic aside, we are asked to accept that this is their relationship, and it’s only made more interesting with the context of Emmett’s past.
Mother, May I? is incredibly strange in the best way possible and presents a modern Edward Albee play with a ghostly twist. Gallner and Roden are remarkable, as always, with Roden leading a captivating performance that floats between two drastically different characters. This relationship is as exciting as the people in it and Vannicelli has given us a character driven horror that is truly special. Everyone should be lining up for this debut when it moves into theaters in 2023.