Mothers from hell: The 15 most terrifying movie moms

From Margaret White to Mrs. Voorhees, these moms continue to haunt our dreams.

When it comes to tapping into subconscious fears on film, there's nothing quite like an antagonistic mother. Some are of a distinctly violent nature, while others get under our skin for manipulating their children and abusing their power. Classic scary moms like Norma Bates, Mrs. Voorhees, and Margaret White have rightly earned their place in horror movie history, but we're just as terrified by the chilling depictions of motherhood in dramas like The Manchurian Candidate, Precious, and Black Swan.

Here are our picks for the 15 most terrifying movie moms, some of which continue to haunt our dreams all these years later.

Umma — Umma (2022)

Many years after escaping the less-than-kind clutches of her mother, Sandra Oh's Amanda is living an idyllic life of beekeeping with her own daughter, Chrissy (Fivel Stewart). Things turn from sweet to sour to terrifying in writer-director Iris K. Shim's ghost story when the remains of Amanda's dead mom — the titular Umma (MeeWha Alana Lee) — are delivered to the pair's remote farm. —Clark Collis

Related: How the director of Umma made one mother of a horror movie

The Mother — Goodnight Mommy (2015)

After extensive facial surgery, the eponymous mother (Susanne Wuest) in this Australian horror film — remade in 2022 with Naomi Watts — certainly looks terrifying, covered in bandages and headgear. The question of what lies underneath those bandages (and what her twin boys do to find out) is even scarier. —Christian Holub

Related: The Big Little Lies twins say Goodnight Mommy to Naomi Watts in eerie trailer for horror remake

Norma Bates — Psycho (1960)

Norma Bates may not actually be the killer in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, but her spirit is still the driving force behind Norman's (Anthony Perkins) deeds. The one time she does physically appear (as a desiccated skeleton) is one of the most terrifying, game-changing moments in horror history. —C.H.

Related: Psycho: The horror movie that changed the genre

Margaret White — Carrie (1976)

In a movie full of pig's blood, telekinetic destruction, and mass murder, the scariest thing is still Carrie White's (Sissy Spacek) mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie, in an Oscar-nominated performance). Her cruel punishments, borne out of stubborn adherence to misguided religious fundamentalism, are the cause of all the movie's pain. —C.H.

Related: The best Stephen King movie and TV adaptations

Mrs. Voorhees — Friday the 13th (1980)

Hockey-masked Jason Voorhees is a horror movie legend, but he still doesn't hold a candle to the original monster of Friday the 13th: his mother. In a reverse Psycho dynamic, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) carried out the original Camp Crystal Lake murders in the name of her drowned son. —C.H.

Related: All of the Friday the 13th movies, ranked

Beverly Sutphin — Serial Mom (1994)

John Waters loves to reveal the sadism lurking just beneath the façade of the American dream, and Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) was a perfect vessel for this project. Beverly never wavers in her mission to protect her nuclear family, even if it includes beating a neighbor to death with a leg of lamb and killing another woman for wearing white shoes after Labor Day. —C.H.

Related: Serial Mom: An oral history of John Waters' comedy classic

Erica Sayers — Black Swan (2010)

Erica (Barbara Hershey) says she only wants the best for her ballerina daughter, Nina (Natalie Portman). But as the movie goes on, it becomes clear that the pressure she exerts is the cause of Nina's fragile mental state. —C.H.

Related: Darren Aronofsky just wants to be perfect with a Black Swan musical: 'We're working on it'

Nancy Loomis — Scream 2 (1997)

Laurie Metcalf is first introduced as Debbie Salt, a journalist covering the latest Ghostface murders. But, as revealed in the final act of Scream 2, she is actually the mother of serial killer Billy Loomis — who was killed by his girlfriend, Sidney (Neve Campbell), in the first film — and now she wants revenge. Metcalf's fully committed portrayal of a vengeful mother makes her one of the best villains in the Scream franchise. —Kevin Jacobsen

Related: The Scream movies, ranked

Mary Lee Johnston — Precious (2009)

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) faces many horrors — teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, HIV — but her abusive mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), is by far the most terrifying. Mary's many depravities (which include beating her daughter and purposefully dropping her baby grandchild) are so visceral they've made their way into rap lyrics. —C.H.

Related: Precious: An unlikely indie phenom

Mama — Mama (2013)

Mama starts off bleak, as a down-on-his-luck father (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) takes his young children out to the woods with plans of murder-suicide. What happens instead is somehow even worse: The girls are taken in by a vengeful demonic entity calling itself "Mama," who refuses to leave them alone even after their eventual rescue. —C.H.

Related: The 37 scariest movies of all time

Mrs. Iselin — The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Released at the height of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate visualized all of America's fears about enemy infiltration. As the manipulative mother of a brainwashed army veteran, Angela Lansbury's Mrs. Iselin memorably demonstrated — decades before Homeland — that sometimes the greatest threat is right at home. —C.H.

Related: The 30 greatest movie and TV villains of all time

Other Mother — Coraline (2009)

Curious 11-year-old Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) is lured into a parallel universe called the Other World, where a button-eyed doppelgänger of her mother (Teri Hatcher) manipulates her to get her to remain there. Her Other Mother form is creepy enough, but it gets taken to another level when she transforms into the spider-like Beldam. —K.J.

Related: Neil Gaiman, Teri Hatcher look back on the otherworldly eeriness of LAIKA's Coraline

Joan Crawford — Mommie Dearest (1981)

Whether or not it was completely accurate, Christina Crawford's account of the abuse she suffered from her famous adoptive mother Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is more terrifying than most monster stories. —C.H.

Related: Feud: Jessica Lange talks Joan Crawford's tragic background

Annie Graham — Hereditary (2018)

Toni Collette set a new bar for scary moms with her performance in Hereditary. Introduced as a miniatures artist who doesn't seem that distressed by her mother's recent death, Annie Graham does start to come unraveled once the family starts to become wracked by other disasters (such as her son's accidental decapitation of his sister!) and occult phenomena. A lot of the horror in Hereditary comes from how terrifying Collette plays demonic possession, and how seamlessly Annie's familial frustrations transition into supernatural evil. —C.C.

Related: Toni Collette says making horror movie Hereditary reminded her of The Sixth Sense

Ellie — Evil Dead Rise (2023)

"Mommy's with the maggots now." With this line, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) earned her placement alongside these iconic horror mothers. After one of her children accidentally summons the demonic forces known as Deadites, Ellie dies and is soon revived by the Deadites, after which she torments her poor kids and sister. —K.J.

Related: Evil Dead Rise star calls her demon-possessed murderer 'unlike any other monster we've seen'

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