Plot
Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their mother was murdered. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night. The day their father killed their mother, sisters Victoria and Lilly vanished near their suburban neighborhood. For five long years, their Uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home. (c)Universal
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Film information
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Movie Reviews:
- 75Movie Nation - by Roger Moore
Horror is all about that short-circuit the screen's technical manipulations cause in our brain, so this isn't high art. But Mama is easily the most moving, most chilling ghost story since "Insidious," an emotional tale efficiently and affectingly told. ...read more - 75St. Louis Post-Dispatch - by Kevin C. Johnson
The finale is heavy on CGI. But it never takes away from this respectable entry into the horror genre that values chills over kills. ...read more - 75San Francisco Chronicle - by Mick LaSalle
Mama is skillfully made, and although Chastain is the best thing in it, she's not the only thing in it. ...read more - 75Philadelphia Inquirer - by Steven Rea
An effectively spooky ghost story with Guillermo del Toro's imprimatur (he's executive producer), Mama is every adoptive parent's nightmare: What if the children you bring home start eating moths and toilet paper, and won't come out from under the bed? And when they do, it's only to do something hurtful? ...read more - 75Charlotte Observer - by Lawrence Toppman
Muschietti does an excellent job of revealing just enough about Mama as we go along (and just enough of Mama herself) to show he's in control of this genre. ... - 75Chicago Sun-Times - by Richard Roeper
Movies like Mama are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's almost always a little plot left over for a sequel. It's a ride I'd take again. ...read more - 75Entertainment Weekly - by Emily Rome
Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short, knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve. ...read more - 70Slate - by Dana Stevens
Like most haunted-house stories, Mama gets steadily less scary as its (for the most part, fairly predictable) secrets unfold. But even if the beats are familiar, Muschietti sustains a remarkable mood throughout: wintry, elemental and stark, like a late Sylvia Plath poem. ...read more - 70New York Magazine (Vulture) - by David Edelstein
The plotting isn't fresh, and the politics are a tad reactionary, but the movie is also shapely, rounded, satisfying - a classical ghost story. ...read more - 70The Hollywood Reporter - by Todd McCarthy
Mama represents a throwback and a modest delight for people who like a good scare but prefer not to be terrorized or grossed out. ...read more - 67Film.com - by Stephanie Zacharek
Mama is one of those pictures that holds you aloft on its vaporous mood of dread – the occasional silliness of the plot mechanics don’t matter so much. ...read more - 67Austin Chronicle - by Louis Black
Haunting and extremely atmospheric, Mama is a horror film imbued with an unsettling and affecting power. ...read more - 63ReelViews - by James Berardinelli
Narrative weakness and bad horror tropes get in the way and Mama's ending disappoints. ...read more - 63New York Post - by Kyle Smith
First-time writer-director Andy Muschietti, an Argentine discovered by Guillermo del Toro, relies too much, especially in the early going, on horror clichés (sudden loud noises and jagged blasts of music), but he does make the tension hum. ...read more - 63Rolling Stone - by Peter Travers
Chastain digs deep, going beyond the call of scream-queen duty to find the passion that gives horror a pulse. ...read more - 60Wall Street Journal - by Joe Morgenstern
Mama itself is above average as a piece of filmmaking, even if its scare quotient is middling or below. That's OK with me. I was content to be impressed by the skill of the first-time director, Andrés Muschietti; absorbed by the performances and smitten by some startling images. ...read more - 60Time Out New York - by Keith Uhlich
Expertly conjured atmosphere only gets Muschietti so far, but there's enough genuine promise here that you're willing to cut this talented newcomer some slack. ...read more - 58NPR - by Ian Buckwalter
What more often sinks Mama is, well, Mama herself. Much like another recent homage to a spookier era of horror, 2011's "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" - which, like Mama, was executive-produced by Guillermo del Toro - Muschietti's film shows its monster too early and too often. ...read more - 50Los Angeles Times - by Betsy Sharkey
Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie Mama are the fake tattoos, short black hair and black T-shirts meant to turn "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain into a guitar-shredding, punk rocker chick. ... - 50The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - by Adam Nayman
The film's long middle section is basically "Paranormal Activity" sans that series' handicam aesthetic, as things go bump in the night and the grown-ups take forever to get their act together. ...read more - 50Portland Oregonian - by Marc Mohan
The visual design of Mama is effective, at least in small, quick doses. But those are about all the positives for this example of why a solid audition reel doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to churn out a feature. ...read more - 50Boston Globe - by Tom Russo
The frustration, though, is how much the movie leans on made-ya-jump scares and contrived plot devices when its quieter chills and already fraught setups are so potent. ...read more - 50Arizona Republic - by Bill Goodykoontz
The atmosphere is appropriately creepy, and there are some starts, if not outright scares...But it just gets stupid. ... - 50Variety - by Justin Chang
Mama, for all her digital and prosthetic creepiness, is finally a bit of a bore. ... - 50New York Observer - by Rex Reed
Trading in her red locks for kohl-lined eyes like a raccoon and the vampire look of Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, [Chastain] is the spookiest thing in Mama. Everything else is cable television. ...read more - 40The Guardian - by Xan Brooks
It has been converted into a proficient, machine-tooled horror flick, stuffed full of shocks and buttressed with back-story. Mama got so flabby the second time around. ...read more - 40Time - by Mary Pols
Mama is clumsily written and choppily edited, but Chastain doesn't have a bad scene in it, and you can see why she chose to be in this supernatural ghost story. ...read more - 40New York Daily News - by Joe Neumaier
If you're going to have a ghost in your movie, it might be a good thing to present a viable alternative to that ghost. Mama, however, presents a battle between two not very good options before crumbling like a sheet on a string. ...read more - 40Village Voice - by Melissa Anderson
Mama never delivers the primal terror its premise would suggest. ...read more - 33The Playlist - by Erik McClanahan
By the time the ridiculous child psychologist character encounters a government employee with a convenient bounty of useful information, Mama just becomes laughable, then annoying. ...read more - 12Slant Magazine - by Ed Gonzalez
The premise isn't even worthy of executive producer Guillermo del Toro, who will apparently lend his name to any film as long as it fulfills its quota of moths and vulvic openings. ...read more
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A creepy and mostly original ghost story. Jennifer Chastain is excellent as the goth and reluctant surrogate mother … a nice change from the suburban mom that is more typical for these character types. The youngest actress who plays “Lily” does a great job juxtaposing cute and creepy as the most screwed up “wildling.” You can clearly see Guillermo Del Toro’s influence given his obsession with bugs. There is too much use of “The Grudge’s” groaning sound effect — someone needs to come up with a new and more original sound. When they eventually show “Mama” in all her glory it starts looking a bit cheesy. But of the three similar titles put out in the last six months (Sinister, The Possession), this is the best of the lot.