Mama (2013)

Often when I watch a PG-13 horror film, my expectations are kept at rock-bottom. It's not that it would be especially difficult for a film to be scary without being R rated, but it's usually something that just doesn't end up happening. Then again, R rated horror films can suck too, in fact most big horror films aren't very good no matter the rating, so I guess it's best to just expect a horror film to suck. That way when a good one comes along you'll be really pleased. Then if you're anything like me, your hopes will be raised and you'll go on a horror movie kick, only to be reminded once more that most of them suck. It's a viscous cycle.

The Guillermo del Toro produced "Mama" falls somewhere in the middle for me. It didn't suck by any means, but neither was it that great. I suppose for a PG-13 horror film it's a cut above what we're used to, but that doesn't excuse some questionable choices when it came to character designs which nearly ruin the entire experience, and an ending which seemed to come straight out of another film. And the film that the ending came out of was not very good.

Despite these issues the film begins strong with a very well done first 10 minutes which is horrifying, heartbreaking and atmospheric as hell. A man comes home after killing his wife and boss, and takes his two young daughters for a ride to nowhere in particular as he speeds along an icy highway. They fly off the road and crash, making their way to a cabin in the woods. As the man is about to shoot his daughters in despair, he is killed by a ghostly figure, who the girls call Mama.

After a long 5 year search, the man's brother, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) finally finds the girls in the cabin. They are feral and can barely speak anymore, having seemingly survived by themselves in the woods the whole time. Of course, we know that they were raised by the ghost, but they don't know that. Lucas arranges for them to live in a house with himself and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain), a Joan Jett type who isn't a big fan of the whole "children" thing. Neither the less, she and the girls eventually start having a connection, which is a problem because Mama is still following them around. And she gets jealous.

Dude, don't go in the closet. You so know you do not want anything to do with anything that's in that closet. Just...stop.

There is some decent intrigue afoot as the mystery of who exactly Mama is and what she wants is decently engaging. And the suspense, enhanced by some fantastic lighting, camerawork, and (on occasion) subdued soundtrack is enough to warrant some halfway effective scares. That being said, there are a few too many jump scares which would have been more effective had they not relied on the orchestra sting, and the final mystery as to Mama's past and what she wants ends up being pretty old-hat. And to make it worse, what she wants ends up being not important at all, which tends to undermine the rest of the film leading up to the ending.

Ah, the ending. Before the ending 10 minutes came along, I was reasonably on board with "Mama." It wasn't great but I was interested. Then the ending hit and it became a Tim Burton movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure they got the same cliff from the end of "Dark Shadows." And while it did kind of make sense from a story perspective, the rest of the film had been relatively down-to-earth, at least as much as a ghost story can be, with a more claustrophobic setting of being trapped in a house with something that wants to kill you. Taking it to a showdown at the edge of a towing precipice seemed a little out of place.

"GREETINGS MORTAL. I AM THE VESSEL OF THE OUTER PLANES GOD. WE DEMAND MORE SPAGHETTI-O'S."

The ending isn't really what hurt "Mama" the most, however. What hurt this film more than anything else was the design of Mama herself. The movie makes a pretty severe error with not only showing way too much of her, but also making her look like a Muppet. I'm not even joking, she looks like a cartoon character with her elongated face, her close-set eyes, and weird twitchy mouth. And the terrible CG used to make her only enhances how ridiculous she looks, which is anything but scary.

Seriously, she looks like a ghost from "Luigi's Mansion."

I guess they were going for a surreal look to her, which is meant to be creepy, but whenever she appears all it does is destroy any tension the film had generated. At least, after you're done jumping from the obnoxious orchestra sting they inserted to artificially trick your body into thinking it's frightened. And after a moment late in the film when one of the characters gets killed and turned into a creature that resembles Mama, which was hilarious since she looked like Sam the Eagle if he were killed in "The Grudge," it's all downhill after that. There's no being scared of a monster that does that to people.

I will admit that I found Jessica Chastain to be alright in this, and she grew on me as the film went along despite being obnoxious at first glance. I'm still not a huge fan of hers though. I guess it's the same problem I have with Jennifer Lawrence. I just don't get the appeal. I am however a big fan of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and while he doesn't get as much to do here as I would have liked, seeing him is always awesome. The opening scene where he has lost his mind to the point of killing his kids (Nikolaj plays both brothers) is simply gut-wrenching, and the best part of the whole movie.

This whole problem could be solved nearly instantly if someone tossed the man a longsword.

Ironically it's the two little girls who steal the show from the two heavyweights. Megan Charpentier as the older sister Victoria had moments of outright brilliance as far as child acting goes, and the younger sister, Lily, played by Isabelle Nélisse deserves insane amounts of credit for being able to portray a fleshed out character with a vocabulary of about 5 words. Both of these girls are simply fantastic, and I'm interested to see where their careers take them. Between them and Morgana Davies from "The Hunter" it looks like there's a lot of talented young actresses to look forward to. Hopefully they won't pull a Carrie Henn and just disappear from acting after a promising start.

And yes, the only reason I bring her up is because Pvt. Spunkmeyer plays the psychologist in "Mama." And that's awesome.

For me the indie circuit is still one-upping the major releases as far as scary movies go. It's not that the major releases are bad, they're just formulaic. While that doesn't make them bad films necessarily, often times they're just kind of boring because of that. "Mama" suffers from that trap of being pretty easy to call, although I've seen it done much worse. Whether or not you think it's worth your time is up to you.

If only the actual movie was as subtle and slow building as the trailer was.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Mama" is worth a rental if you don't expect too much from it. It's not very scary, at least not for me, but I could see it scaring the bejesus out of someone. At least it's got Jamie Lannister in it. And there are far worse horror films as of late. Far. Far. Worse.