Umma is a 2022 Horror film.
Amanda is a single mother (Sandra Oh) who lives with her daughter Chris (Fivel Stewart) on a farm. They raise bees, sell honey and in general live a technology-free life. One day, her uncle from Korea comes for a visit with her estranged mother's ashes and other belongings. After the uncle departs, Amanda is haunted by painful memories and more.
This work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: Courtesy of Amanda's uncle:"What kind of daughter abandons her mother?"
- Abusive Parents: Umma used electricity multiple times to punish her daughter.
- Asian Fox Spirit: After the delivery of Amanda's mother's cremated remains, Amanda finds the kumiho (nine-tailed fox from Korean mythology) that was eating her chickens.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Zigzagged; on one hand Amanda is not physically abusive and she makes sacrifices for her child. On the other hand her aversion to electrical appliances and her decision to keep anything related to Umma away from her daughter isolates Chris from the rest of the world and deprives her of her Korean heritage.
- Catapult Nightmare: Amanda wakes up like this from a nightmare based on a time when her mother, calling her Soo-Hyun, punished her for running away.
- Demonic Possession: What Umma does to her daughter Amanda after the latter tries to bury the urn with Umma's ashes in a shallow ditch.
- Establishing Character Moment: Amanda's uncle brazenly driving past the sign reading, "No motorized vehicles beyond this point", much to her displeasure.
- Familial Body Snatcher: Amanda unceremoniously buries the urn containing Umma's ashes. In turn, Umma ends up possessing her and attacking her daughter.
- Freudian Excuse: The reason why Amanda lives a technology-free lifestyle: Because Umma punished her daughter as a child with electric shocks, Amanda now claims to have an "allergy" to electricity.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Umma's hard life as an immigrant single mother did not justify her abusing her daughter.
- Get Out!: Amanda orders her uncle to "get out of her house" after he comes in with her mother's ashes and belongings and berates her life choices.
- Immigrant Parents: Amanda was raised by a mother who was isolated from everything she knew and who could not speak English.
- My Beloved Smother: Amanda does not react well to her daughter's desire to leave the farm and attend college.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: According to Amanda's uncle about the box with Umma's ashes, "Her anger will grow the longer she remains in this box."
- Technophobia: Because of Amanda's PTSD triggered by electricity, the farm has a sign that reads "No motorized vehicles beyond this point". When Amanda's partner drives in to pickup cases of her honey, he parks by the sign and leaves behind his phone and wristwatch. In contrast, Amanda's uncle drives past the sign and parks just a few feet away from her house. There is no technology on the farm whatsoever, not even a telephone or lightbulbs. The house's circuit breaker is in a cellar that's chained up and padlocked, the switch in the off position.
