Mama was, by all accounts, supposed to be THE horror movie of 2013. The various trailers with the two little girls and the long stringy hair covering their faces walking up and down walls, sleeping underneath their beds, and possessing the characteristics of a wild animal were sure to get the hairs on the back of your neck up. Attaching Guillermo del Toro’s name to the credits as a producer doesn’t hurt the scare factor either. Mama was another movie that forced me to buy into the hype. It looked like my kind of movie. It starred one of my favorite actresses, Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Help), and it appeared creepy. This movie looked like a winner. It also didn’t hurt when my high school students said, after opening weekend, that it was both “good” and “scary.” Well…the movie wasn’t good, but it did have its share of scary moments. There wasn’t anything unexpected, but there were still moments when you felt like you were sitting on pins and needles. Off the top of my head, I’m not sure what the scariest movie of 2013 was, but it certainly was not Mama.

The story is just lame and unimaginative. We’ve seen plenty of movies about haunted houses. There have been plenty of films about characters being possessed. There have even been plenty of movies about people being possessed by haunted houses. It might have been successful if Mama could have provided a new twist on one or more of these things. But this was just the retelling of a story we have seen dozens of times in the last decade. For whatever reason, I kept comparing this movie to The Grudge in the “You really should not look in that closet” mentality or “The kids know what is happening, but the adults don’t” mold. The first couple of times you see a movie like this, you think it’s cool. But when it keeps resurfacing itself in film after the movie, not only do you quickly lose interest, but you say, “Not this again.”

The girls have been abducted by their father, Jeff (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau – television’s Game of Thrones). This happens in the first few minutes of the movie. Something has spooked him, and he’s driving like a maniac through some back roads while it is pouring buckets. They crash and eventually find themselves in a cabin buried deep in the woods. While at the house, Jeff continues to be distraught. He is ultimately killed by some ghoulish creature lurking through the house. The young girls (Victoria and Lilly) are left unaccounted for five years. At this point, five years later, they are discovered by some searchers. The girls no longer resemble the sweet little girls they were. Instead, they are almost like brutal animals. They’ve lost the ability to communicate verbally. Their hair, having not been cut in 5+ years, extends to their waists (including in front of their eyes), and they can also crawl off the walls and the ceilings. There appears to be some spirit in this house, referred to as “Mama.”

The girls are reunited with Jeff’s brother Lucas (also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The girls have trouble acclimating to their new environment, and weird things start happening. Mama’s presence has followed the girls from the cabin to their new home. Lucas, Annabel, and a bevy of psychologists and psychiatrists try to help the girls, but they continue to act weird. From here, the story continues to get dumber and dumber. Not only is it dumb, but it doesn’t make sense. It also will leave you very unfulfilled. Regardless of how you would like the movie to end, you will not be satisfied with how it does end.

If you are looking for a horror made in recent years that also provides an original and interesting story, this is not yet. I recommend watching Sinister instead.

Plot 3/10
Character Development 3/10
Character Chemistry 3/10
Acting 4/10
Screenplay 3/10
Directing  3/10
Cinematography 4/10
Sound 4/10
Hook and Reel 3/10 (I was never bored and enjoyed the movie the more we got to know each character)
Universal Relevance 1/10
31%

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• The Orphanage
• The Others
• The Woman in Black
• Sinister
• The Conjuring