Mama (2013) review

(8/10)

This kind of horrific, melancholy fairy tale of two girls is definitely worth seeing. Del Toro definitely knew what he was doing when he made this.

PLOT:Five years after a tragic murder involving a family of four (a dad, mom, and two girls), two little girls are found in a cabin living by theirselves, or so it seems. Once the girls are returned to civilization, they are placed in the care of their uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain). However, a presence from the cabin seems to have followed the girls back home; this presence is the spirit that has raised them the past five years, named Mama. Now Luc and Annabel must try to protect the children from the jealous hands of Mama. It's a good plot executed very well.



ACTING:The performances in here were excellent. I think this film lived off the acting aside from the scares. The best performances were done by Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Annabel and Lucas/Jeffrey. They really led the cast on. The other shiners would be Daniel Kash as Dr. Dreyfuss and Megan Charpentier as Victoria. For a child, she did a pretty great job.

SCORE:The score was very good. It set the mood of the film off in the right direction every time, and it contained a truly haunting theme that I hope becomes more familiar in time. Thank you, Fernando Velazquez.

EFFECTS:The effects are really what set the scares in place next to the supsense. Though all of the effects were CG, they never failed to scare. The effects used to make Mama look and move in scary angles were pretty great. I, as a animation/special effects geek, have always wanted to pull off something like this.



OTHER CONTENT:This was actually a really good film. Del Toro decides to put old-school jump scares and suspense-buliding techniques to win over its audience instead of just mindless gore and killing. It also contained a very compelling storyline and told it as if it were a sick, melancholy fairy tale instead of a horror film. Even for being a modern horror film, this was truly a beautiful film with balancing emotions and plenty of scare in it. However, I found it to be a little derivative in some of the scares and ideas it contained. Also, I didn't really agree with the ending; I could've seen it going in a completely different direction, even if it was an emotional end.

OVERALL,a great horror film with a really good plot, excellent acting, very good and haunting score, pretty great effects, old-school scares and suspense-builiding, and beauty by balanced emotions, but it was a bit derivative and I didn't agree with the ending.