What – Mama (Movie)
Where and When – In Cinemas March 14, 2013.
Reviewer - Joe Calleri.
Stars – 3.
Full Disclosure - I attended a Universal
Pictures media screening of this movie on Wednesday 06 March, 2013.
When Mama, a
Spanish-Canadian horror film (co-written and directed by Andres Muschietti,
with Guillermo del Toro serving as Executive Producer) opens, it’s during the
height of the 2008 global financial crisis.
A visibly distraught, desperate father, Jeffrey (Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau), has kidnapped his two young daughters, Victoria (Morgan McGarry)
and Lilly (portrayed in the early sequences of the film by twins Maya and Sierra
Dawe). Jeffrey has already murdered his wife. He’s on the run.
Driving erratically along a remote, icy mountain road, the trio’s
Mercedes Benz drives off the road and crashes into trees below. Miraculously,
the three survive and stumble across an eerie looking log cabin in the middle
of nowhere. When Jeffrey, intending to kills his daughters and then himself, goes
to pull the trigger on his eldest daughter, Victoria, he is set upon and taken by
… something.
Flash forward five years later. The girls’ uncle, Lucas (also
played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), an artist, has been conducting a meticulous search
for his missing brother and nieces.
Two hunters and their hunting dog, engaged by Lucas, find the
cabin. And Victoria and Lilly. They are alive. However, the girls crawl on all
fours, animal-like. They have forgotten how to walk, or how to speak. But how,
we ask, could the girls have survived for so long in such an isolated, wooded
area? And, what has befallen Jeffrey, their father?
Lucas is overjoyed with the wonderful news that his young nieces
are alive. Less impressed, however, is Annabel (Jessica Chastain), Lucas’s
girl-friend, a free-spirited musician. Annabel, we learn, is not exactly the
maternal type.
Lucas is determined to gain custody of his young nieces. He does
so after defeating a determined custody application by the girls’ grand-mother,
Jean (Jane Moffatt). One of the unusual custody conditions is that, the girls, along
with Lucas, and Annabel must live in a new town-house, where the girls’
progress will be monitored by the inquisitive psychiatrist, Dr Dreyfuss (Daniel
Kash).
But, when Lucas, Annabel, Victoria (now portrayed by Megan
Charpentier) and Lilly (now Isabelle Nelisse) move into their new home, they
are not alone. They are joined by a spirit the girls affectionately call - Mama.
And Mama is very jealous of her girls. She does not countenance anyone coming
close to the girls. Especially Lucas and Annabel.
The Mama creature effect, one of the film’s highlights, reminded
me at times of Hades, one of the characters from the film, Clash of the Titans. She is all flowing black material, ephemeral. She
is gruesome. She moves with blinding speed. And when she takes form, she is
lethal.
The two blonde child actors, Megan Charpentier as the older
Victoria, and Isabelle Nelisse as the older Lilly are quite fabulous. They are
absolutely believable in their roles as two damaged, abandoned, unloved urchins.
They are, in my mind, the stand-out characters. The other characters are dull
and one-dimensional by comparison.
This is, generally speaking, a very good looking film that offers audiences
some very dark, tense moments, well-crafted, and spooky visual effects,
outstanding performances by the two young female leads, and some very good
scares. At the screening I attended, the guy seated in front of me jumped out
of his seat when the Mama creature leapt towards one of the characters during
one of the film’s tense scenes.
Some audience members may complain regarding the film’s comparative
lack of gore by modern day horror film standards. This was not one of my
complaints. Rather, my major concerns lay with the film’s many troubling and
annoying plot incongruities, and the film’s contrived ending, which leaves the
film open to a sequel.
If audiences take home one message from this film, it should be
that, Hell hath no fury like a Mother scorned!
