[Mother of Fears] Mother of Fear-Escaping a Mother’s Love in Run (2020)

Welcome to Mother of Fears – a monthly column that will explore the various roles that mothers play within the horror genre. Mothers are a staple feature in horror movies, and yet, their stories, motivations, representations, and relationships with their children are so varied and complex that we never feel like we’re watching the same story twice. Every month I will take a look at a different mother from the world of horror, explore their story, and look at how they fit into the broader representation of women in horror.

Going away to college can be a difficult time for both parents and children. While both parties are no doubt looking forward to the new-found freedom which will come with the change in circumstances, it also brings a lot of disruption to the status quo of the past eighteen years. 

For mother Diane and her daughter Chloe, it seems as though both of them are excited about what the end of high school will mean. However, things are a little difficult for the pair, as Chloe has several health issues, meaning she uses a wheelchair, has been home-schooled, and spends most of her time under the watchful eye of her mother. After being born premature, and with no father mentioned, Chloe and Diane have only had each other for a very long time. 

However, as Diane sits in a support group for parents of home-schooled children, they chat about how it will feel to no longer spend so much time with their kids. While other parents sit in tears, Diane is calm. She’s looking forward to more free time herself, and the freedom that being at college will bring her daughter. She says there’s nothing to worry about, and Chloe is one of the strongest people she knows. 

For Chloe and Diane, life seems very peaceful, with the two getting on very well considering how much time they spend in each other’s company. The two women have their own routine, living in a remote house at the edge of town. Chloe’s number one concern is checking on any college acceptance letters which come through, which her mother assures her she will deliver to Chloe the minute any appear.

Things start to go wrong very quickly for the pair when Chloe is rummaging in the newly delivered shopping bags to try and find some chocolates so she can steal a few extra before her mother starts dishing them out in predetermined portions. While looking in the bags, she finds a bottle of medication which she doesn’t recognise and which has her mother’s name on it even though it is for Chloe. After questioning Diane, her mother is evasive, lying to Chloe that she read the name wrong or saw the receipt and that it was nothing to worry about. 

Chloe’s relationship with her mother depends on her placing a large amount of trust in her. She trusts her to dish out her food and manage her sugar intake. She trusts her to keep her up to date with her home-schooling and provide her with the medication she needs. And so when Chloe asks her a quite simple question and her mother immediately goes on the defensive, it sparks some worry in her daughter. 

Diane pretty much shuts down about the topic at this point, and Chloe decides to try and find out about the medication herself rather than pushing the topic and risking falling out with her mother. However, when she tries to sneak onto her computer later that night, she finds the internet malfunctioning. She’s annoyed, she thinks little of it, but we see Diane sitting in the kitchen next to the unplugged internet router.

The next morning, her mother mentions the internet is down and that she’s trying to get it fixed, but by now, Chloe is more than a little suspicious. The timing of the internet going down seems a little too convenient for her, and as it provides her only real access to the outside world, Chloe suddenly finds herself stuck. She now needs to fully rely on her mother’s word, because she doesn’t have a choice. 

However, we’ve seen that Chloe likes to occasionally break her mother’s rules. And while she has only done things like sneak chocolates before, now that she’s found herself in a more extreme situation, she’s quick to find a way around her mother’s attempt to cut her off from the outside world. While her mother is out in the garden, Chloe calls a random number from her mother’s bedroom phone and asks them to Google the medication for her so she can see if all is as it should be.

Chloe proves that she is as quick-thinking as her mother, and even though Diane thinks she’s one step ahead of her daughter, Chloe is just as sneaky. Considering how much time the two spend with each other, it’s impressive how well they are able to hide this other side of themselves on a daily basis. And we soon find out the full extent of exactly how much Diane has been hiding in order to provide what she has decided is the best life possible for her daughter. 

From the phone call, Chloe discovers that the pills aren’t the correct shape and colour and suspects her mother has been mislabelling her pills to keep her in the dark about what she’s taking. After confirming that her mother is lying to her, Chloe takes a huge risk by asking Diane to take her to the cinema so she can sneak out to the pharmacy mid-movie and find out what the pills are. Even though her mother discovers her before she can do anything with the information, Chloe finds out the pills are meant for dogs and would lead to leg numbness if taken by humans. Diane swoops in to rescue her daughter, sedates her, and takes her home. 

Awakening the next morning, Chloe discovers her entire life has changed. With too many lies to explain and no way to cover them up anymore, Diane has simply chosen to cut Chloe off from the outside world until she can figure out what to do. Chloe has been locked in her room, and the chairlift for getting up and down the stairs has been disconnected. While Diane has been very caring to her daughter up until this point, it’s quite shocking to see how quickly she is willing to take away her independence to ensure that she can keep a certain level of control over her. 

However, Diane underestimates the steps that Chloe will take to find out what is going on and freedom from what she’s quickly beginning to understand is a very controlling situation. Chloe climbs across the roof, breaks into her mother's bedroom, and ends up falling down the stairs before she finally makes it out of the house and manages to flag down the mailman to help her. Unfortunately, Diane returns home at just the wrong time, and Chloe quickly finds herself locked in the basement. This time, Diane has chained up her wheelchair, removing Chloe’s last chance of an easy escape. 

It’s in the basement that Chloe undercovers the true levels of her mother’s deceit. Not only does she find piles of hidden college acceptance letters, but she also discovers evidence that Diane’s biological daughter died not long after she was born, and Diane stole Chloe from the hospital and her true parents. She also finds photos of her as a child which show her walking and standing, proving that her mother has also lied about her medical history. 

Diane was unable to cope with the death of her own daughter, and in her grief-stricken state, she decided to steal a healthy baby from the maternity ward and glue her life back together as much as possible. By faking Chloe’s multiple illnesses, it allowed her to control her daughter and make sure that Chloe would always rely on her mother because she had no one else. Most importantly, it helped Diane keep Chloe hidden from the rest of the world.

Diane was willing to put on a front to her daughter and the outside world about how happy she was about Chloe going to college, but we can see now that she probably would have never allowed her daughter to leave her. Whether she would have lied about the acceptance letters, forged rejections, or done something to compromise her daughter’s health even further, it’s obvious Diane was willing to do whatever it took to keep Chloe close to her. 

At this point, their relationship has been damaged beyond repair, with Chloe realising that she can never trust anything her mother tells her ever again. And with Diane threatening to inject her with paint thinner to help her forget, Chloe locks herself in a cupboard. With few options left, she drinks a jug of organophosphate, trusting that Diane won’t leave her to die, and hoping she’ll get the help she needs at the hospital. And while Diane attempts a daring hospital escape with Chloe for the second time, she is apprehended by security guards, and Chloe is finally able to get the help she needs without her mother breathing down her neck. 

Seven years later, Chloe has grown up, got married, had children, and is getting on with her life. She still uses her wheelchair, though she can walk with a cane and go places by herself. She visits Diane in the hospital where she is locked up due to her injuries and talks about how amazing her life is with her new family.

At the start of the film, Diane said how she’d looked after Chloe for 17 years, meaning she couldn’t travel or date or go out and do anything herself. And now, Chloe is finally getting to experience all those things for herself, while Diane remains trapped and unable to lead a real life. Diane wanted to rob Chloe of these life experiences just so that she could feel the security of always having her daughter near. Now, Chloe is happily living her life without Diane, only visiting her periodically to rub salt in her wounds. 

Diane is locked up and completely alone. Had she allowed her daughter a little freedom and given her the chance to go off to college and live her own life, then chances are the two would have still been extremely close, even if they weren’t living together. By putting her own needs above those of her daughter, Diane has ended up with no one, and she has to listen to Chloe talk about a life that Diane so easily could have been a part of.

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