The film is based on a three-minute-long short film, “Mamá,” from director Andrés Muschietti; del Toro saw it, was entranced, and encouraged Muschietti to turn the film into a feature-length work. Along with wife Barbara and screenwriter Neil Cross, Muschietti has penned this adaptation, which adds far more plot to the initial idea of two daughters running from a terrifying specter that claimed it was their mother. I watched that short story, with all the lights on, during my lunch break at work and then refused to go to the bathroom for the rest of the day because I didn’t want to be in an enclosed space. It’s that terrifying.
But the full-length version of “Mama” … well, it suffers from too much time on its hands, too much context, too many attempts to be grounded in a current time and place. The film focuses on young sisters Victoria (Megan Charpentier, of “Resident Evil: Retribution,” “Red Riding Hood,” and “Jennifer’s Body”) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), whose father goes somewhat crazy after financial ruin, kills their mother, and drives off into the snowy woods, planning to murder them as well. But something goes wrong: they survive, he dies. And the girls spend five years in the forest, isolated from the rest of society, living in a filthy cabin, and eating only cherries. When they’re finally discovered, everyone is shocked—how could they have lived this long? And now that they’re alive, where do they go?
That’s where uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), their father’s twin brother, steps in. The artist and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain, of “Lawless,” “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” “The Help,” “The Tree of Life,” and “The Debt”)—a rock guitarist with lots of tattoos and a shock of black hair—agree to take in the two girls at the behest of respected Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), who wants to study the sisters as Lucas and Annabel work to socialize them back into the civilized world. No more crawling on all fours. No more eating bugs. No more whispering the word “mama.” The girls will have a new mother now, Annabel. And their other mother—the one who saved them from their father and has cared for them since then—isn’t having it.
So what goes on is a struggle not only between Annabel and this ghost for control over the two girls, but strife builds between the sisters, as well. Victoria wants a regular life: She quickly becomes accustomed to walking on two legs, eating with silverware, sleeping in a bed, and doing all the other things normal kids do. Lilly, however, isn’t as ready to let go. She still snacks on insects. She roams the house and the backyard at night. She still whispers “mama,” and when she does, something answers—something that threatens everyone in the house, everyone around the girls, and everyone who would take away what the ghost has worked so hard to protect.
If this all sounds a little like “The Woman in Black” to you, that’s because the two films are fairly similar. Last year’s film starring Daniel Radcliffe focused on a woman returning from the dead to exact vengeance for her child, and “Mama” could be construed as the same movie: mother wronged by others, mother wants what’s best for her offspring, mother calls the shots. In fact, that’s a little like Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, isn’t it? But without the wonderfully angry historical bent? Actually, Beloved as a horror film—that would be awesome.
Seriously, though, “Mama” suffers because it doesn’t really probe at those familial relationships, at the resentment that can breed between a mother and her children. That’s the kind of thing no one wants to talk about, and could be an interesting foray for this kind of spooky, supernatural story. But “Mama” uses all the tired old tricks, like insects and things that go bump in the night, and provides a hackneyed backstory to explain the evil presence. Yet the presence is inconsistent, too, with fangs, claws, tentacles, and overly long, spider-like limbs; it’s all the scariest parts of monsters thrown together into one—which makes it not really that fearsome at all, if you’re used to this kind of thing.
Plus, the CGI? You’ll laugh at it. The jump-out-of-your-seat moments are still effective—and the filmmakers do a good job waiting to show off Mama’s details, building up creepy suspense—but after that important reveal, the thrill is gone.
Nevertheless, “Mama” isn’t all bad. Charpentier and Nélisse are very good and very, very creepy, crawling around, covered in mud, and generally looking like the feral children you never wanted. They act specifically well against 7-foot-tall Javier Botet, who plays Mama before all the CGI stuff is added to create the character. Chastain is likeable and effortless, per usual, even though her Goth getup is a little ridiculous. And Coster-Waldau is charming and charismatic, just as he is on the hit HBO show “Game of Thrones.”
But even all that acting talent can’t fix what “Mama” does wrong, which includes a laughable ending and a Gothic style that too easily evokes memories of “Harry Potter” Dementors and del Toro’s own previous work. In trying to provide a believable backstory for the villain, Muschietti give too much of the story away—and will leave viewers feeling more unfulfilled than afraid.
