'Ma,' Octavia Spencer's true crime obsession and the best friendship behind her horror star turn

LOS ANGELES - Eight years ago director Tate Taylor and actress Octavia Spencer scored the summer's biggest sleeper hit with "The Help." (She went on to win an Oscar for the best picture nominee.) Now they've reunited for a very different kind of surprise: the deliciously bananas Blumhouse thriller "Ma," a shockingly gory R-rated thriller about a mild-mannered woman (Spencer) who turns stalker on the teens she befriends.

As the longtime friends and collaborators tell it, Spencer was frustrated with the lack of interesting characters coming her way when Taylor called with an intriguing offer: a twisted tale that would let the Academy Award winner flex her darker impulses and show off a side of herself nobody had seen before.

"He said, 'I have a horror film for you,' and I said, 'Let me stop you, because black people always get killed in the first 15 minutes,'" said Spencer, sitting next to Taylor on a basement couch in a historic West Adams mansion littered with red Solo cups and party detritus, set dressing evoking the ramshackle party pad of "Ma."

"He said, 'Not only are you not getting killed in the first 15 minutes - you get to do the killing.' I said, sign me up!" she said, laughing.

Spencer stars as Sue Ann, a quiet small-town veterinary assistant