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Very few horror movies would last past the second act if the characters in these films were actually fans of horror movies.

Some time after the first occurrence of Scary Old Timey Music Wafting Through the Vents, after Creepy Bugs Fluttering Inside the House and certainly by the time of the "Accidental" Fall That Sidelines a Key Character — well, that's when any red-blooded, movie-going individual would run out the front door and never look back.

To the credit of director Andy Muschietti , his co-writing team and a first-rate cast, "Mama" succeeds in scaring the wits out of us and leaving some lingering, deeply creepy images, despite indulging in many of the aforementioned cliches — and about a half-dozen more. (Executive produced by horror master Guillermo del Toro, "Mama" is a feature-length expansion of a three-minute short that Muschietti made with his sister Barbara.)

In addition to at least three or four jump-in-your-seat stingers, we get some of the most creatively chilling nightmare sequences in recent memory. A stylized dream (which is really a transferred memory) set in the 19th century, in which we see a crazed young woman creating bloody terror before leaping off a cliff with her newborn, all of it shown from the madwoman's point of view? That's a lot more innovative than anything we're likely to see in yet another film about a plodding behemoth in a mask chasing after dumb teenagers through the woods.

In the prologue to "Mama," we learn of a shooting at a financial firm after an economic crash. A distraught executive named Lucas ( Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from "Game of Thrones") arrives home, quickly collects his two young daughters, Victoria and Lilly, and speeds off. They wind up in an abandoned house deep in the forest, where Lucas apparently intends to shoot his daughters before he can kill himself.

That's not quite how it works out.

Flash forward to five years later. Lucas' brother Jeffrey (also played by Coster-Waldau) has never given up hope. His team of searchers finally stumbles on to the very abandoned house we saw a century ago in the nightmare. Dad's long gone, but the girls are still there — covered in mud, making strange noises, crawling on all fours in rapid fashion like wild animals. How could they have survived on their own?

The girls are kept in isolation for a few months as Dr. Dreyfuss ( Daniel Kash ) records their every move while ostensibly helping with their assimilation. Given that Victoria keeps making cryptic references to an unseen "Mama" and Lilly sleeps under the bed, gnaws on fruit, twigs and the occasional bug, and screams whenever anyone tries to touch her, the girls hardly seem ready for ice cream, pajamas and bedtime stories, but Jeffrey is determined to give them a normal life.

So Jeffrey and his rocker-chick lover, Annabel ( Jessica Chastain in a black wig and a tattoo sleeve), take the girls to their new rent-free home, provided by the ever-lurking Dr. Dreyfuss, who wants only to keep studying the little ones.

Let the chills and spills begin. As Dr. Dreyfuss investigates some long-ago murders at a facility just a few miles from the site of that house in the forest, Jeffrey is sidelined by an "accident," leaving the reluctant Annabel in charge of the girls, who are still a long way from being invited to anyone's play group. (Not that we ever see a hint of even one neighbor on the block. Does no one hear all the shaking, rattling and rolling going on in that house where the rocker chick lives with those scary little girls?)

For the longest time we don't see much of the ghostly Mama, who apparently has been alternately caring for and terrorizing the girls all these years and has made the trip with them to suburbia. She flashes by the screen, or we see just the top of her head as she zips about the house. Once we do see her, yipes. Thanks to a combination of CGI and a performance by the extremely thin, extremely tall Spanish actor Javier Botet, this is one frightful Mama.

The real mother in the story is Annabel, who slowly sheds her tough-talking, who-gives-a-bleep exterior as her nurturing instincts take over. It's worlds away from Chastain's Oscar-nominated turn in " Zero Dark Thirty " and further proof she's one of the finest actors of her generation.

Some elements of "Mama," including the dream sequences, are reminiscent of Japanese horror films. There's also some dark and wicked humor, as when Lilly plays and giggles with an offscreen Mama while Annabel goes about household chores, oblivious to the insanity occurring just around the corner. Coster-Waldau is solid in what turns out to be a supporting role, and Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse are terrific as the little girls.

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.

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Film credits.

Mama (2013)

Rated PG-13 for violence and terror, some disturbing images and thematic elements

100 minutes

Jessica Chastain as Annabel

Megan Charpentier as Victoria

Isabelle Nelisse as Lilly

Daniel Kash as Dr. Dreyfuss

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas/Jeffrey

Directed by

Andy Muschietti

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Mama: film review.

Jessica Chastain stars in an elegantly made little horror film from executive producer Guillermo del Toro and first-time director Andy Muschietti.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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A playful, elegantly made little horror film, Mama teasingly sustains a game of hide-and-seek as it tantalizes the audience with fleeting apparitions of the title character while maintaining interest in two deeply disturbed little orphan girls. Being sold primarily on the name of its godfather, Guillermo del Toro, this Canadian-Spanish co-production from Universal is refreshingly mindful of the less-is-more horror guidelines employed by 1940s master Val Lewton, not to mention Japanese ghost stories, but the PG-13 rating might prove too restrictive for the gory tastes of male core genre fans. Still, less bloodthirsty female teens could make up the difference at the box office, as the film provokes enough tension and gasps to keep susceptible viewers grabbing their armrests or the arms of those next to them.

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Mama Reviews

Hits most of the expected beats of a ghost story of this nature, though the actual design of the titular character is jarring and evocative enough to stay with you well after the credits roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 22, 2023

Following a common trend in supernatural horror, Mama begins with a novel premise and compelling characters, but then slowly digresses into bankrupt genre clichés, rampant exposition, and formulaic boo! moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 20, 2022

...a little unnerving when it needs to be and creepy throughout.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

Mama may not be the go-to horror film, but in the season of honoring mothers, it is the perfect film for the horror fanatic.

Full Review | May 6, 2022

While [Guillermo Del Toro] only takes an executive producer credit here on Mama, I doubt more involvement would have been helpful.

Full Review | Jan 14, 2021

Connoisseurs of a more classic thriller/horror vibe will embrace the emotionally resonant and thought-provoking Mama.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 15, 2020

Promising pieces and a stylish presentation should be enough to at least recommend "Mama," but the movie never coalesces into anything greater than the sum of its parts.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 18, 2020

The first truly heinous film starring Jessica Chastain.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.2/5 | Nov 19, 2019

What might have been a great twist is wasted. Back to the drawing board for all those involved.

Full Review | Jul 30, 2019

Despite an intriguing premise and a few scenes that work really well, this is one of those horror films that get sillier as they go along.

Full Review | Apr 11, 2019

Never quite feels like the sum of its parts, devolving disappointingly into a nuts 'n' bolts chiller with sparse originality of its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2019

Chastain is certainly the biggest reason to see Mama, but... The young actresses playing the girls can hold their own.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 18, 2018

One of the few horror films that feels more character-driven and isn't just a monster-of-the-week jump scare fest.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Nov 1, 2018

While Mama is occasionally hamstrung by cliches, it is a stylish and effective ghost story that lives up to its promise, delivering spine-tingling scares.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2018

It will make you shiver with fear, but it might also make you question what passes for "natural" when it comes to motherhood.

Full Review | May 23, 2018

While its finale gestures at something emotional, getting there involves mucho familiar multiplex filler: loud screeches and some pretty silly business involving the girls' sinister way with wax crayons.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 1, 2017

Good acting can't forgive bad effects or narrative choices, and yes, there are a lot of those.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 9, 2017

While Del Toro uses fantasy elements to reach deeper into childhood fear (see Pan's Labyrinth), Mama has flashes of terror then sets back to be, at best, routine.

Full Review | May 10, 2016

Clearly suffers from post-production tinkering but offers some decent chills at its best moments.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2015

If horror movies can be regarded for their degree of effort, then here is one of the hardest-working of the recent past.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 26, 2014

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Metacritic reviews

83 The A.V. Club Tasha Robinson The A.V. Club Tasha Robinson Plenty of horror movies are willing to settle for making audiences jump. Mama is more ambitious by far: It makes sure viewers are emotionally committed even when they aren't clutching their armrests or covering their eyes.
75 Entertainment Weekly Entertainment Weekly Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short, knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve.
75 Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Sun-Times 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.
70 The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter 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.
67 Austin Chronicle Austin Chronicle Haunting and extremely atmospheric, Mama is a horror film imbued with an unsettling and affecting power.
60 Time Out Keith Uhlich Time Out 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.
50 Observer Rex Reed Observer 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.
50 Variety Justin Chang Variety Justin Chang Mama, for all her digital and prosthetic creepiness, is finally a bit of a bore.
40 Village Voice Melissa Anderson Village Voice Melissa Anderson Mama never delivers the primal terror its premise would suggest.
12 Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine 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.
See all 35 reviews on Metacritic.com
See all external reviews for Mama

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Where Dread Throbs and Little Girls Scuttle

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By Manohla Dargis

Jan. 17, 2013

Guillermo del Toro, the reigning godfather of motion-picture horror, is the modern-day Val Lewton , the legendary producer of atmospheric chillers like “The Curse of the Cat People.” If you’re a movie fan, you know that horror doesn’t get much better than this, and when it comes to contemporary offerings it rarely gets more enjoyable than “Mama.” Instead of delivering buckets of guts and gore, this ghost story offers a strong sense of time and place, along with the kind of niceties that don’t often figure into horror flicks, notably pictorial beauty, an atmosphere throbbing with dread and actors so good that you don’t want anyone to take an ax to them.

The story opens with a camera sliding up to a car parked at an angle, with the driver’s door open and the radio blaring in front of a suburban house. Catastrophic economic news has led to a panic, with one executive, Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), running amok. Since the fetching Mr. Coster-Waldau plays the blond bad boy Jaime Lannister on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” you may expect the worst. The director Andy Muschietti — who shares script credit with his sister, Barbara (who’s also one of the producers), and a third writer, Neil Cross — whittles the story down to its freaky primal nub. One minute, Jeffrey is holding a gun and contemplating the unthinkable with his two young daughters; the next, the girls are five years older and singing a lullaby straight out of “ Hellraiser .”

The Muschiettis open the movie with “once upon a time,” tipping that “Mama” is a modern fairy tale of sorts. After the girls went missing with their father, their uncle, Lucas (also Mr. Coster-Waldau), initiated a search. Two of his trackers find them in a derelict midcentury-modern home deep in the woods. (Dad remains M.I.A.) It’s a setting that suggests an abandoned Don Draper weekend getaway, save for the two critters scuttling across the floors and atop a fridge, where one hovers over the other like a bird with a chick. Filthy, with matted hair and skinny spider legs, these are the little lost girls, Victoria (Megan Charpentier), and her younger sister, Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), wild children seemingly headed toward an unhappily ever after.

Lucas takes custody of Victoria and Lilly, to the sullen displeasure of his live-in girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain). Together they move into a house provided by the hospital where the girls are treated. However appealing its cast, the movie sputters in this stretch, partly because it takes time to recover from the shock of Ms. Chastain’s amusingly apt Goth drag (she only looks menacing), with her jet-black accouterments and multiple tattoos snaking around her pale arms. More problematic are the lapses in logic. The filmmakers easily sweep the girls out of their woodland digs, but they stumble with some of the more ordinary scenes.

“Mama” began as a wittily unnerving three-minute short about two girls and a maternal creature that the Muschiettis shot to show Mr. Muschietti’s range as a director. Mr. del Toro took notice of their pocket shocker, and while he took only an executive producing credit on the feature-length “Mama,” it fits with the more successful movies he’s signed onto. Mr. del Toro understands that nothing says terror like a home that’s become a rattling cage. And so, once Lucas has been awkwardly dispatched, leaving Annabel home alone with the girls, Mr. Muschietti gets down to shivery business.

Ms. Chastain and her excellent child co-stars, an intensely matched set, embody their characters with soulful believability, whether they’re working together or creeping along a hallway solo. Left to their own devices these three initially circle one another warily. Where this reluctant, plausibly uneasy family is headed is obvious, but Mr. Muschietti throws out enough diversions and visual wit to keep you distracted from the predictable turns. In “Mama” horror is intimate, domestic and overtly feminized, so much so that its monster — Javier Botet, from the “(Rec)” Franchise — opens up darkly oozing, Cronenbergian holes in the wall, a striking visual suggesting that the house itself has given birth to the demon. Here the law of the father meets the wounded wrath of the mother.

“Mama” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). A consistent sense of dread, topped with some dead.

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Mama – review

I t is the first law of horror yarns that the dead shall rise and the past return to haunt the present. In 2008, for instance, Argentinian director Andrés Muschietti made an electrifying three-minute short about two little girls on the run from their demonic mother. Now Mama is back, cranked out into feature length, with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer, and Jessica Chastain playing the irresponsible rock chick who discovers her own inner mom while riding to rescue a pair of semi-feral orphans. 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.

Horror films
Jessica Chastain
Guillermo del Toro

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Movie Reviews

'mama' knows best — but she's the worst.

Ian Buckwalter

When Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Annabel (Jessica Chastain) welcome his orphaned nieces (Isabelle Nelisse, left, and Megan Charpentier) into their home, they also inadvertently welcome one particularly malevolent spirit. Universal Pictures hide caption

Director: Andrés Muschietti
Genre: Horror
Running Time: 100 minutes

Rated PG-13 for violence and terror, some disturbing images and thematic elements

With: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Daniel Kash

Watch Clips

Credit: Universal Pictures

'I'm Not Your Mom'

If the movies have taught us anything, it's that when you're lost in the wilderness, an abandoned cabin in the woods may not be the life-sustaining shelter it seems.

In the opening sequence of Mama , a car accident leaves Jeffrey ( Game of Thrones ' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his daughters stranded in the snow. They happen upon just such a cabin, and he eagerly takes them inside and starts a fire. But apparently he's never seen a slasher pic, so he's unprepared for the inevitable danger — and of course he's murdered in due time by the spirit who lives in the cabin's walls.

Meet "Mama," who raises Jeffrey's girls, Victoria and Lilly, as near-feral beasts. They'll be recovered five years later through the continued search efforts of Lucas, Jeffrey's identical twin brother. Lucas and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), take on the task of caring for the barely verbal children, who hide under beds and skitter around the room like human ghost crabs fleeing a flashlight on the beach.

They're aided by a psychologist, Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), who's ostensibly there to help ease the girls' reassimilation into polite society. Given the girls' stunted development, that wouldn't be an easy task even with experienced, willing parents — and Annabel, reluctant to give up her rock 'n' roll lifestyle for instant parenting, has some distance to go to connect with her maternal instincts. Things are also complicated by the fact that Mama has followed the girls back to civilization, and is jealous of the competition.

When he took the girls into Mama's lair, Jeffrey may have ignored the storytelling conventions at play, but audiences will recognize them immediately — and they go far beyond just the cabin in the woods. First-time feature director Andres Muschietti stuffs a host of traditions from cinema and folklore into Mama and sets the blender to liquefy.

The kids being left in the woods to fend for themselves with a malevolent caretaker recalls "Hansel and Gretel," and you can take your pick of other stories involving children raised in the wild, from Romulus and Remus to Mowgli.

Lilly and Victoria provide a haunting presence at the heart of Mama , a horror film backed by executive producer Guillermo del Toro. Universal Pictures hide caption

The family psychologist with nefarious motives is but one element from Cronenberg's 1979 classic, The Brood , while the secret behind Mama's attachment to the children is straight out of The Woman in Black . The moth motifs of The Silence of the Lambs come into play, and the swelling music and familial drama of the climax wouldn't be out of place in early Spielberg. Muschietti even visually quotes Kubrick's The Shining right out of the gate, with a helicopter shot of a car making its way along twisting mountain roads.

Surprisingly, this patchwork pastiche often works. The director maintains the somber, chilly tone of '70s horror, which serves to unify all those disparate influences and also helps distract from the often highly questionable decision-making of the characters (another horror hallmark Muschietti doesn't neglect). Let's just say you'll spend a lot of time thinking to yourself, "Don't go in there!" or "Why would he go and investigate that place at night, alone, without telling anyone where he's going?" The contrivances can be eye-rolling, but as a part of a celebration of the film's sometimes cheesy influences, they're marginally excusable.

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. When she's slithering around in the shadows, Mama has the power to make every hair on your spine prickle. But when she's sitting still out in the open, her digital construction seems all too apparent — and more silly than frightening. The film's climactic scene drags out longer than it should anyway, but even more so given that so much of it relies on her unconvincing figure dominating the frame.

When Mama works, it's because of its flesh-and-blood maternal figure. Annabel is the film's foundation, and true to her growing reputation as one of the most committed actors in Hollywood, Chastain throws herself into this material as convincingly as in her Oscar-nominated turn in Zero Dark Thirty . Her journey to find the "Mama" in herself might be as conventional as the other spare parts Muschietti has cobbled together — but then when they're delivered this artfully, it's clear why those conventions exist in the first place.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Uneven movie has very scary scenes, some involving children.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Mama brings up some heavy, complex ideas about mot

The girls' uncle is a selfless character who d

Many very spooky, creepy, and outright scary image

The main character and her boyfriend kiss and star

"F--k" is heard once during a voicemail

Enterprise Rent-a-Car is mentioned by name.

Positive Messages

Mama brings up some heavy, complex ideas about motherhood, fear, love, devotion, protectiveness, and selflessness. Some of the characters learn to change, opening their hearts and accepting new kinds of relationships.

Positive Role Models

The girls' uncle is a selfless character who doesn't have much money but still wants to take care of his nieces. Annabel learns a great deal over the course of the movie, moving from being a very selfish person to a more giving and caring one.

Violence & Scariness

Many very spooky, creepy, and outright scary images, but very little actual blood. Children appear to be in danger in many scenes, especially a few early ones in which 1- and 3-year-old girls are with their panicked, unhinged father. (They survive a car wreck.) Secondary characters are killed, but only offscreen. A few semi-gory drawings are glimpsed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The main character and her boyfriend kiss and start to undress each other, but they're interrupted. No nudity is shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k" is heard once during a voicemail message. "S--t" is said a few times, and "Jesus Christ" is used at least twice as an exclamation. Other words include "hell," "ass," butt," "crap," "oh my God," and "shut up."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Parents need to know.

Parents need to know that Mama is a horror movie starring Jessica Chastain and produced by Guillermo Del Toro . It's very light on blood and gore, but there are lots of powerfully scary, spooky images, as well as scenes of young children in danger. Language is light (with one use of "f--k" and about three uses of "s--t"), and there's one brief scene of adult kissing and sensuality. Mama is a bit more ambitious than other horror films, and many horror-crazy teens will be able and eager to see it. But some of the movie's themes around motherhood and caring for children are a better fit for adult viewers. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

Parents say (15)
Kids say (72)

Based on 15 parent reviews

A good movie, it really all depends on the person.

What's the story.

Black-haired, raccoon-eyed rock 'n' roller Annabel ( Jessica Chastain ) lets out a happy "whoop" when she discovers that she's not pregnant. But her boyfriend, Lucas ( Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ), is an artist who's spent five years searching for his missing brother and two nieces. And when the nieces -- Victoria ( Megan Charpentier ) and her younger sister, Lily (Isabelle Nelisse) -- are suddenly discovered alive in a cabin in the woods, Annabel and Lucas find that, ready or not, they're now parents. Unfortunately, a creepy ghost known only as "Mama" -- complete with silvery hair, crooked features, and bent limbs -- has been looking after the girls and has no intention of letting them go. Can Annabel discover the ghost's secret before "Mama" gets really mad?

Is It Any Good?

Mama seems to be more about special effects and solving mysteries than about truly exploring fertile -- and spooky -- territory. Producer Guillermo Del Toro 's name in the credits may bring up memories of powerfully scary movies about lost girls ( Pan's Labyrinth ), but MAMA was directed and co-written by Andy Muschietti , a newcomer who adapted his own short film to feature length. Clearly Muschietti has some interesting themes to explore, such as the fact that motherhood is scary and powerful, and he has created two fascinating polar opposites in Annabel and the ghost of "Mama."

Unfortunately, rather than expanding and deepening these themes, the filmmakers fill in the blanks with a bunch of shop-worn old horror routines. Characters can't stop making silly choices, such as visiting the creepy cabin in the woods at night rather than during the day. And a sinister aunt who wishes to take the girls away could have been a much more satisfying addition.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Mama 's violence . Do horror movies have to be gory to be scary? How did the movie's spooky scenes affect you?

What makes Mama scarier -- or less scary -- than other horror movies ? How much spooky stuff does it show, and how much is hidden?

Do you think the children in the movie appreciate or understand the lengths to which the two "mother" characters care for them and love them? What messages is the movie sending about parenthood?

How does Annabel come to appreciate the role of motherhood? What is she like before that?

Movie Details

In theaters : January 18, 2013
On DVD or streaming : May 7, 2013
Cast : Jessica Chastain , Megan Charpentier , Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Director : Andres Muschietti
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Horror
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violence and terror, some disturbing images and thematic elements
Last updated : September 17, 2023

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DVD & Streaming

Content Caution

In Theaters

January 18, 2013
Jessica Chastain as Annabel; Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas/Jeffrey; Megan Charpentier as Victoria; Isabelle Nélisse as Lilly; Jane Moffat as Jean Podolski; Daniel Kash as Dr. Dreyfuss

Home Release Date

May 7, 2013
Andrés Muschietti

Distributor

Universal Pictures

Movie Review

Once, years ago, there was a frightened daddy who did bad things. He lost money, hurt friends, killed Mommy, and grabbed his two tiny daughters and ran. But when daddies drive too fast on slippery, icy mountain roads, even scared little girls know that more bad things are bound to happen.

And they do.

The car slides off the road and crashes. And the little ones are left to follow their bleeding daddy as he limps through the snow-covered woods. Luckily they find an old run-down shack in those dark and cold woods. And Daddy starts a fire in the fireplace to keep them warm. But all is still not well.

Daddy cries. And he sits looking at the gun in his hand. And he tells his big girl Victoria to look outside at the snowy trees. And he lifts the gun up to the back of her head.

Then something happens. And Daddy is gone.

Some five years later, a pair of men come upon an old battered cabin in the woods. It’s a crumbling shack that they’re surprised they’ve never seen before. Especially with all the hunting they’ve done near there. But what’s even more surprising is the fact that the shack isn’t empty. It holds two young girls. Two filthy, feral girls who growl and scamper on all fours like overgrown rats.

Once the girls are captured and taken back to civilization, the real odyssey begins. A prominent doctor studies their miraculous case. Their Uncle Lucas steps forward to take them in. But both men have so many questions: How do you actually care for a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old who are more beast than child? How do you reach them? For that matter, how did they possibly survive in those woods for five years?

The girls can’t give many answers. But as they start to reclaim bits of the language they’ve lost, it’s clear that both children believe they’ve had a protector for all that dark time. It’s impossible, of course. There was no evidence of anyone else in that shack. But Victoria and her younger clinging sister, Lilly, have a name they keep invoking, a person they keep calling …

Positive Elements

Mama is an intelligent film with strong statements to make about the life-changing impact of love and parenting.

Neither Lucas nor his live-in girlfriend, Annabel, are absolutely sure about their decision to take the girls in. Annabel is upset that she’ll have to leave her rock band to care for the kids, though she does it anyway. But she definitely doesn’t feel up to the task of being a “mom.” When she thinks Lilly is calling her “Mama,” she quickly says, “Don’t call me that.”

With time we see how even the slightest changes and small displays of affection from the girls start to melt Annabel’s reserve—to the point where she becomes so passionately connected to them that she willingly and doggedly risks death to protect them. Lucas steps out into scary territory to be the girl’s protective father figure. He drags himself out of a hospital bed to rescue them early on.

For the girls’ part, they respond to Lucas (their dad’s twin brother) and Annabel’s affection. Victoria quickly recognizes and embraces Lucas—thinking he’s her father at first. Then with time she tells Annabel she loves her, and moves to protect her from Mama’s jealous rages. Even little Lilly changes somewhat. Annabel finds the girl half-frozen one morning, huddled under a tree in the yard. Annabel runs to grab her, and while the girl at first fights her embrace, she softens at the warmth of Annabel’s breath and loving touch. The overall effect is one that lets the filmmakers explore the fear, jealosy and maternal longing women feel as they find purpose in the the nurturing of children.

Spiritual Elements

In death, the girls’ dad, Jeffrey, comes to his brother in a dream and pleads with him to “save my girls.” That may seem sweet, but as with many ghost stories there’s a dark and very twisted view of the spiritual world on display here. A researcher, for instance, who works with the respected psychologist Dr. Dreyfuss, tells him that “a ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again until it rights the wrong that has been done.”

It’s that “wrong”—a travesty involving the desiccated, skeletal remains of a baby—that supposedly gives Mama’s spirit the ability to remain in this world and strike with such rage-filled power. She uses a dank spreading rot, populated with black moths, to infect the areas where she resides. She leaps and moves in a series of contorted, twisted and physically impossible ways that deliver their own sense of horror.

[ Spoiler Warning ] We eventually realize Lilly is inextricably linked to Mama when we see her joyfully interact with this darkness and rot, to the point of eating the fluttering moths like candy.

Sexual Content

Annabel wears the formfitting jeans and T-shirt garb of a rock ‘n’ roller. Her shirts and nightwear are sometimes a bit revealing—often exposing cleavage and sometimes her bra. At one point she and Lucas start passionately kissing on their bed. She begins pulling off his shirt but stops at the sight of a shadowy figure in the bedroom doorway.

Violent Content

We rarely see anything grisly or overly bloody. A fatal shooting, for instance, is represented by a few drops of blood on a bedroom floor. But there is a dark and ominous sense of death hanging in the cinematic air. A dream/vision sequence reveals a nun being stabbed with a knitting needle. Rotting decay spreads over her chest and face. A crazed woman grabs a small baby and leaps off a high cliff in that dream as well. We see two men have their necks viciously snapped in the shadows. Another has sharp talon-like fingers driven into his chest. A dead body floating facedown in a lake bursts open, spewing hundreds of moths.

When the girls are first rescued from the wild, they’re both covered in scrapes and bruises. Lucas is sent sprawling over an upstairs railing, and we see him violently thump down the steps, smashing his head along the way and landing bloodied on the floor below. Mama attacks the girls’ Aunt Jean, taking possession of her body. We later see the woman awkwardly moving—as if her internal skeletal structure was snapping and dislocated. She then crumbles over in a pile of loose flesh and bone.

Jeffrey’s car flies over a snowy hill and crashes into the trees below. We hear a radio report that he shot and killed two business associates. After a particularly ugly dream of a screaming and clawing Mama, Annabel wakes with a large bruise on the back of her neck. Later, while fully awake, Mama attacks her, driving her to the floor and seemingly sucking life out of her. Later still, Mama buffets Annabel and repeatedly pushes her face to the ground as the young woman reaches to rescue the girls.

As mentioned, Jeffery puts a gun to the back of his daughter’s head. [ Spoiler Warning ] Lilly is ultimately wrapped up in Mama’s dark cloak-like form and dropped off a high cliff to her death—they both burst into billows of moths when they hit.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word, a handful of s-words and several abuses of God’s and Jesus’ names. Two or three uses each of “h-ll,” “d‑‑n,” “a‑‑” and “b‑‑ch” round out the coarse language.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Annabel drinks a beer with one of her bandmates.

Other Negative Elements

In an attempt to find out what’s been going on between Dr. Dreyfuss and the girls, Annabel slips into his office and steals a box full of recordings and files. A seemingly always-bruised Lilly plays with and eats bugs and filth.

In today’s age of torture-porn, chain saw slashers and single-camera Paranormal creepers, it would be understandable if you heard the words horror flick and immediately imagined a gory blood-gush or a low-tech, shaking-camera jump-fest. But producer Guillermo del Toro (who directed Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies) and new director Andrés Muschietti have crafted something a bit different.

This is more of a glossy “crawl on the ceiling” ghost story mixed with a richly nuanced Grimm’s fairy tale. It has well-developed characters you care for, innocent children you fear for, a semi-happy ending you hope for and an incredibly creepy monster you love to loathe … and kind of understand at the same time. It’s a film that surprisingly underscores the importance of self-sacrificial caregiving and the transforming power of a kind soul. It layers on lessons in what should happen to a grown-up’s heart when children need them. It even promotes adoption in its own scary way. It’s both emotional and effectively pulse-raising.

Mama is also a pic that basks in its own ridiculous premise and proudly parades a fiendishly twisted spirituality. It relishes every raw-throated scream and black talon-handed neck snap. It yelps its coarse language, gobbles up innocence and skitters around your tiptoeing mind with feral intensity.

And those moments of dramatic grace and storybook elegance sometimes get lost in a deep, dark, cinematic wood.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Mama (Movie Review)

Andy's rating: ★ ★ ½ director: andrés muschietti | release date: 2013.

Mama marks the feature film debut of director Andrés Muschietti. Inspired by his short film of the same title , Mama revels in archaic horror tropes; favoring the terrors of primordial nature, feral humanity, madness, ghosts moaning in the night, and the return of the repressed. The film is drenched in fiercely aggressive shadows, tightly framed locations, and more than a handful of scenes involving scuttling figures climbing across floors and walls. But while Mama has a concrete sense of its stylistic elements and ancestry it never escapes some of its more claustrophobic characterizations, repetitive scare tactics, and occasionally contrite plotting.

Mama opens during the early moments of the 2008 economic collapse. Lucas, a successful investment banker, is overheard murdering his wife in a blind rage and subsequently abducting his two daughters Victoria and Lilly. After a car accident leaves them stranded the girls are saved by an unexplained entity that resides in a secluded cabin. Five years later the girls’ uncle Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) can barely finance a meager search effort made up of two yokels and a hound dog. His girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) is seen mocking the search and cheering for a close call with a pregnancy test, that is when she’s not playing bass in generic rock band. But a chance encounter with the car wreck leads the yokels to the girls who have ostensibly been surviving in the wilderness. Jeffrey and Annabel adopt Victoria and Lilly while also moving into a new home provided by a psychology institute in order for smug Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) to continue his studies. But as Annabel and Dr. Dreyfuss spend more time with the girls it becomes apparent that a supposed imaginary friend named “Mama” who helped the girls survive may in fact be more than imaginary.

Mama owes much to a myriad of classic ghost and haunting narratives. Of specific interest to many western versions of these stories is a threat to a family or heterosexual couple. These trials are an apparent stand in for whatever may be the culturally perceived current obstacle to maintaining a hetero-monogamist and traditional family relationships. Indeed Annabel’s arc becomes the most central to the film’s overall project. She needs to learn how to become a mother, care for children, stay at home, and leave her (supposedly narcissistic) career in the band behind. This is further signified by alterations to Annabel’s costuming as she swaps out ripped up t-shirts for outfits of a progressively matron style before landing in a turtleneck. Even the move from their arguably more personal apartment to a generic suburb seems to force the couple back into a world that almost killed Lilly and Victoria. All of this might be a little sly on the filmmakers’ part if these elements of forced socialization were played ironically. But unfortunately the white bread existence is portrayed as the only potential salvation.

Mama ’s prologue suggest the film may also be attempting to address the traumatic effects of wide spread economic uncertainty and by extension the uncertainty of traditional institutions. This is particularly relevant in the first shot as the camera pushes in from a wide shot of Lilly and Victoria’s childhood home, Lucas’s car hurriedly parked out front, door ajar while a license plate reading “N1 DAD” is placed prominently in frame. As a radio announcement on the downturn is overheard we here a shot go off. It’s a moment that explicitly illustrates the brokenness of this place. However the theme is never returned to and exists solely as a brief psychological motivation for Lucas to go mad. The fact the girls obliquely witness the murder of their mother is also deliberately ignored in favor of the more effects heavy “Mama”.

The uncertainty of Mama ’s themes and plotting begin to explicitly manifest during the film’s penultimate moments. Characters happen to appear exactly where they need to be, technology fails and works accordingly, and evidence is strategically placed. (There is literally a moment when Jeffery walks out in front of Annabel’s car…at night…in the forest.) When the climatic encounter with Mama does occur we are left with a conflicted albeit potentially ballsy moment. The decision to portray what happens is a bit surprising particularly with a film that has a decidedly heavy-handed studio presence (more than one item or service is referred to by a specific, audible brand name). However the moment rings false, attempting to be melancholic, tragic, hopeful, humanist, and nihilist in one fell swoop. The conclusion becomes increasingly uncertain of itself as an aggressively sanguine and slightly maudlin score insists upon the action; provoking us to be hopeful and relieved when in actuality it’s more than a little disturbing.

Most of these criticisms of Mama admittedly ignore the film’s noteworthy moments. The film’s first act has more than a fair share of unsettling, creepy set-pieces. The young actresses who portray Victoria (Megan Charpentier, who is on her way to becoming a contemporary genre vet already) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) give committed performances and Muschietti coaxes some great moments from them. Muschietti also orchestrates some accomplished sequences that provoke both a solid sense of suspense, vertigo, and surrealist unease. A dream sequence and chase around the home are of note. Chastain’s magnetic presence helps eclipse some of her characters rougher, undeveloped edges. The film’s rich atmosphere also remains a palpable presence throughout, complete with a detailed and unnerving sound design and jittery yet elegantly violent performance work by Javier Botet.

Mama is a genre film to the bone. It knows its beats, its traditions, and atmosphere. But what the film unfortunately lacks is a consistently interesting elaboration or a concise, lucid reimaging of genre tropes. While it may have a fair share of tense, surreal, and creepy moments it never quite rises above some confused plotting and awkward characterizations.

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Andy is an editor for Grim magazine from Anatomy of a Scream.

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Where to watch

2013 Directed by Andy Muschietti

A Mother's Love is Forever

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 parents were killed. 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.

Jessica Chastain Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Megan Charpentier Isabelle Nélisse Daniel Kash Melina Matthews Morgan McGarry Javier Botet Jane Moffat David Fox Dominic Cuzzocrea Julia Chantrey Ray Kahnert Christopher Marren Matthew Edison Diane Gordon

Director Director

Andy Muschietti

Producers Producers

J. Miles Dale Bárbara Muschietti

Writers Writers

Andy Muschietti Bárbara Muschietti Neil Cross

Story Story

Andy Muschietti Bárbara Muschietti

Casting Casting

Robin D. Cook

Editor Editor

Michele Conroy

Cinematography Cinematography

Antonio Riestra

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Guillermo del Toro

Production Design Production Design

Anastasia Masaro

Art Direction Art Direction

Elis Y. Lam

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Patricia Cuccia Kari Measham Andrij Molodecky John 'Butch' Rose

Stunts Stunts

Alison Reid

Composer Composer

Fernando Velázquez

Sound Sound

Greg Chapman Alfredo Díaz Allan Fung Gabriel Gutiérrez Marc Orts

Costume Design Costume Design

Luis Sequeira

Universal Pictures Toma 78 De Milo

Canada Spain USA

Releases by Date

08 jan 2013, 17 jan 2013, 18 jan 2013, 31 jan 2013, 01 feb 2013, 07 feb 2013, 08 feb 2013, 22 feb 2013, 01 mar 2013, 06 mar 2013, 07 mar 2013, 14 mar 2013, 21 mar 2013, 05 apr 2013, 17 apr 2013, 18 apr 2013, 15 may 2013, 29 may 2013, 07 jun 2013, 14 jun 2013, 20 jun 2013, 29 jul 2017, 01 apr 2021, 07 may 2013, 17 jun 2013, 28 aug 2013, 01 oct 2013, 23 mar 2018, releases by country.

Theatrical M
Theatrical 14
Theatrical 15
Physical DVD & Blu-Ray
Digital VOD
Digital Netflix
Theatrical 16
Theatrical 15A
Theatrical B

Netherlands

Physical 16 Blu ray
Physical 16 DVD
TV 16 SBS 9
Theatrical M/16

Russian Federation

Theatrical 16+
Theatrical 12
Premiere New York
Theatrical PG-13
Physical PG-13 DVD

100 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Lucy ★★★ 3

GOTH JESSICA CHASTAIN

Review by ellie ✨ ★★ 2

always interesting to see how far into a horror movie i get before having the thought "i'd just kill myself." made it to 38 minutes this time

Review by DirkH ★ 40

I apologize in advance for the swearing and caps lock typing but fuck this film and modern mainstream horror.

Mama represents everything that's wrong with the genre these days. It is bland, uninspired and has no fucking soul whatsoever, which is kind of ironic as it is a ghost story.

Why? Why do ghost stories always have to be played out THE EXACT SAME FUCKING WAY IN EVERY FUCKING FILM???!!!!??? Creepy kids? Check. Creepy house? Check. Kinda sorta expert meddling with shit? Check. COmpletely clueless dimwitted adults who figure out nothing by themselves but just have shit happen to them and happily tag along making all the worst choices imaginable? Check. Predictable backstory with equally predictable resolution? Check.

Review by cat ★★★

the scariest part of this whole movie was jessica chastain’s wig

Review by clementine ★★ 3

i'm built like mama

Review by Dom ★★★½

I liked this. If I was adopted by punky Jessica Chastain, Jaime Lannister and their pet sausage dog I would never complain about anything in my life ever again.

Review by Bethany ★★

i love you jessica!!!! even in your goth days!!!!

Review by Afaf ★★ 2

that was actually...sad

Review by sree ★

mama said it's MY turn to play with the poltergeist

Review by briony ★★½

lesbian custody battles are nasty

Review by matt lynch ★★½

rescued by Chastain's ambivalent motherhood, but man does this go on and on, just forever , and the last 30 minutes or so of chasing around some ridiculously stupid-looking CGI thing is just a catastrophe.

Review by King #adoptdontshop ★★½

Daddy Nicolaj Coster-Walda adopt me!

Mama is a horror movie about a ghost who took care of lost siblings - and she wants to keep doing so despite being rescued by their uncle and his wife. On paper, this Andy Muschietti film should be terrifying especially since the ghost design is damn scary. This horror drama also features decent performances from the kids and a goth Jessica Chastain. There's gasp-worthy sequences that fully committed to Mama ’s eerie atmosphere and the climax is chilling. Considering the ghost’s purpose a little heart definitely helped.

But the scares are repetitive and too long in between in such a snail's pace that the spooks quickly ebbed away. Thinking about it, Mama is more maternal drama than horror, and might disappoint fans who want to be consistently scared - a kind of horror that belong to the early 2000s (don’t know why, but it kinda reminded me of The Grudge )

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Review: ‘Mama’ is a witch’s brew of frights and faults

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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.

That misfire becomes just one more bump in the road when you long for more bumps in the night. Though there are a few frights — a skittering shape that keeps showing up is the best — rather than dishing out pure scary movie chills, first-time director Andy Muschietti serves up a darkly twisted allegory about a mother’s protective instincts. Which would have been an excellent framing device, and infinitely more satisfying for grown-ups, if he had pulled it off. He doesn’t quite.

You can feel the imprint of the film’s guardian angel, executive producer Guillermo del Toro, but his touch is too light to help “Mama” cast the mystical, magical spell of his Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Muschietti’s 2008 short film, much admired for its striking visuals and its scare as two children try to escape an evil force, caught Del Toro’s eye. Soon he and Muschietti began a collaboration to turn “Mama” into a feature-length film. The basic sensibility of the short survives, but the added setups and plots twists are a stretch.

PHOTOS: Haunted houses and deadly dwellings on film

The filmmaker first wrote the script with sister Barbara Muschietti, one of “Mama’s” producers. Then it was reworked by Del Toro, and finally polished by Neil Cross, best known for creating the excellent British TV crime drama “Luther.” You can almost feel “Mama’s” pages passing through all those hands. (Cross and the Muschietti siblings share the credit.)

The opening is a perfect example. To get to the witchy spirit driving the film, two little girls need to end up in a cabin in the woods — alone. But first there is a car haphazardly parked on a suburban street, its door open and radio blaring reports of a Wall Street massacre. A disheveled and distraught dad runs into a bedroom and gathers up his two daughters. Soon they’re on a mad drive over icy roads where the desperate travelers are thrown as many non sequiturs as curves. Finally, after a lot of nonsense, dad and daughters stumble across that proverbial horror movie staple, a “deserted” cabin in the woods. We still don’t know what is behind the histrionics, and we never will. Because…

The movie flashes forward five years. The girls’ cool uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who also plays his vanished brother Jeffrey) has been spending all his money searching for his nieces — Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and her little sister, Lily (Isabelle Nelisse). His girlfriend, Annabel (Chastain), tolerates the tiny apartment and his obsession because her real focus is “the band.” There are so many things the Oscar-nominated actress can do so very well — comedy a la “The Help,” or drama like “Zero Dark Thirty” — but a Joan Jett clone? She’s just too refined, or she certainly stays that way in “Mama.”

Fortunately before too many guitar sessions, the girls are found and the film starts ratcheting up the strange doings we were promised. The sights, sounds, lights and looks that follow are exceptional with an eerie, earthy beauty to the scariest stuff. The spectral presence at the heart of this story is mesmerizing to watch as it morphs into monstrous shapes big and small. Overall the film is visually stunning with its crack creative team comprising director of photography Antonio Riestra, production designer Anastasia Masaro, the visual effects team led by Edward Taylor, Montse Ribe and David Marti handling makeup and Luis Sequeira costume design.

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But perhaps scariest of all is that after only a week or so of being evaluated by psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) and a quick custody battle with Aunt Jean (Jane Moffat, who also provides Mama’s voice), Lucas, Annabel, Victoria and Lily are all living in a plush house paid for by Dreyfuss’ research institute. Lucas is thrilled; Annabel is resigned; the girls, nearly feral and often walking on all fours, are seriously damaged. So it’s hard not to shrink back with them when Annabel snaps — don’t call me Mama.

Never fear, Annabel, they weren’t talking to you.

Mama (Javier Botet) is one of the most intriguing evil presences to turn up in horror movies in a while. Not only is the character a shape-shifting marvel to witness, there are other frightening elements that attend her. All manner of creepy crawlies begin to fill the house, unexplained marks start appearing on the walls, voices fill the air as do moths — they look too sinister to be butterflies. There is a back story about restless spirits and how the dead, like the living, are condemned to repeat the past. But every time things start to get interesting, the story shifts to something more mundane.

People lie, people die as Mama’s rage builds up. Like Mama, Chastain gathers strength along the way as her character is allowed to explore the dicey emotional terrain of motherhood and her growing bonds with the girls. In the fight for the children, the metaphorical mother-child connection becomes a mystical horror show of significant power. Sadly it comes too late to save “Mama.”

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Former Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey is an award-winning entertainment journalist and bestselling author. She left the newsroom in 2015. In addition to her critical essays and reviews of about 200 films a year for The Times, Sharkey’s weekly movie reviews appeared in newspapers nationally and internationally. Her books include collaborations with Oscar-winning actresses Faye Dunaway on “Looking for Gatsby” and Marlee Matlin on “I’ll Scream Later.” Sharkey holds a degree in journalism and a master’s in communications theory from Texas Christian University.

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'mama' review, what we do get is about 60 minutes' worth of very good and effective ghost story, made to look less attractive by the 40 minutes of fat hanging off of its middle..

Mama is the lastest horror movie to carry the prestigious stamp of being "presented by Guillermo del Toro" - following in the tradition of such films as The Orphanage (2007) and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010). Mama tells the story of Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), two little girls whose tragic family history leaves them stranded in the woods for five years' time.

When their father's twin brother, Lucas ( Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), finally tracks the girls down, it seems like the reunion is a small miracle; although Lucas' punk-rock girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) isn't too thrilled with the sudden shift from starving artist to maternal figure. It doesn't help things when Annabel begins to suspect that the girls may not have been fending for themselves out there in the woods. Some thing watched over them, and is still watching over them in their new home; an entity the girls only refer to (in secretive whispers) as "Mama."

Typically with these "del Toro presents" films, the acclaimed filmmaker uses his clout to both support a creepy/frightening tale that caught his macabre attention, while also helping to showcase the work of a freshman feature-film director. Stepping up to bat this time is Andrés Muschietti, the writer/director who made the 2008 Mama short film that this feature-length version is based on. Muschietti proves himself to be a visual and conceptual talent, and his film is definitely boosted by the talent of Chastain (in her pre-Oscar nom days) and the two young actresses who serve as its stars. However, while the concepts, acting and construction of the film all show hints of great skill, the execution of the storyline is where Mama fails to capitalize on its own potential.

In terms of direction, Mama is a pretty strong debut for Muschietti. The cinematography is dark but vibrant (full of earthen tones) and the sequences are all visualized and constructed in sharp, creative ways. Most of the film is confined to two locations (the woodland cabin where the girls are found and a house where Lucas, Annabel and the girls are living) but how Muschietti chooses to use these set pieces and the tight space therein is fairly smart and engaging most of the time. Instead of the usual 'calm by day, scary by night' progression, we instead get a lot of clever scare moments executed at all times of day (even broad daylight), using angles and framing to give even mundane moments (like doing laundry) a creepy edge.

Given the choice to use an ever-present antagonist (ghosts tend to lose their mystique the longer they hang around) and two child characters who are more unnerving than dangerous, Muschietti ultimately settles for a film that is consistently creepy, but only seldomly frightening. By the time the film reaches its over-blown conclusion, it has fully shifted from horror story to dark fairytale, and any scare-power it had in store ultimately dissipates into conventional drama. Despite that fizzle at the end, however, much of Mama is (as stated) pretty creepy.

A lot of that creepiness can be attributed to the young leads, Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse - who play Victoria and Lilly, respectively. As the older of the two, Charpentier has the more difficult task of being the conflicted sister, torn between memories of her past life and her time with "Mama." The part calls for some intense interrogation scenes with psychiatric professor Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) and moments of both menace and childlike vulnerability. For a such young actress, Charpentier holds her end up well enough.

Since Lily spent most of her formative years in the woods, with no memory of life beforehand, Nélisse is given the much more fun task of playing the perennially creepy, snarling, untamed wild-child - a task she most definitely embraces wholeheartedly. Lilly will make you laugh, gross you out - and now and again, freak you out as well.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gets to have a bit of fun in his brief blips of screen time, playing both the half-mad father of the girls and the more sensible twin uncle; after certain developments unfold, he even gets a few moments worthy of a guest spot on House M.D. That is to say: this is mostly Chastain's show.

It's doubtful that Muschietti and Co. knew that their starlett would be such a big name by the time their movie was finally released, but aside from the extra star-power Chastain brings to the film, her quality acting skills carry a lot of the movie in between the girlie/ghostly scare moments. She's good enough that Annabel's arc from bitter babysitter to fierce lioness protecting her cubs is a solid and relatable through-line that grounds the half-cooked supernatural mythos.

"Half-cooked" is a term that can indeed be applied to much of Mama 's narrative. The film is frustrating in the fact that the script - by Andrés, his sister Barbara, and TV scribe Neil Cross (BBC's Luther ) - has a strong core story (the powerful effects of maternal instinct) and a great mythos built on top of that; solid foundations that the script totally undermines by adding too many extraneous bits.

Instead of focusing on Chastain and the girls, Mama in many ways presents us with three major story arcs - Annabel, Lucas and Dr. Dreyfus - only, by the end, one of those arcs has been tied-off abruptly and unsatisfyingly; another is abandoned completely, and the final one (as stated) spins right out of horror into full-on melodrama - but hey, at least it's completed in full, right? (FUN FACT: If you watch the Mama trailer after seeing the film (watch it below) you can actually find out the resolution to part of the story, which didn't actually make it into the theatrical cut.)

At 100 minutes run time, Mama isn't exactly epic in length - yet it still shows the sort of fatigue and confusion that can often appear when one tries to stretch a short film out to feature length (see also: Shane Acker's 9 ). While short stories allow for the quick introduction and immediate payoff of great core concepts, longer formats of storytelling require a pacing and careful balancing of time and attention that Muschietti just can't quite get right. What we do get is about 60 minutes' worth of very good and effective ghost story, made to look less attractive by the 40 minutes of fat hanging off of its middle. It's regrettable since there is so much that the film does well, but as it stands, Mama is just a fairly good time, and would not be a bad call as a future rental.

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Mama is now playing in theaters. It is 100 minutes long and is Rated PG-13 for violence and terror, some disturbing images and thematic elements.

Mama Movie Review

Written by Joel Harley

DVD released by Universal Pictures UK

Directed by Andrés Muschietti Written by Neil Cross, Andrés Muschetti, Barbara Muschetti 2013, 100 minutes, Rated 15(UK) Starring: Jessica Chastain as Annabel Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas/Jeffrey Megan Charpentier as Victoria Isabelle Nélisse as Lilly

Mama! Just killed a man. Not with a gun against his head, but nasty supernatural powers instead. Mama! Life has just begun for little Lilly and Victoria, who are abandoned in the woods by their troubled murderer of a father and adopted by something far worse instead. Mama! They didn't mean to make her cry, but when the girls are found by their hippy uncle and his rocker girlfriend, their surrogate mother begins to suffer some terrible jealousy pangs. Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let them go!

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The Ending Of Mama Explained

Director Andy Muschietti's decade-long stint as a feature film director has been incredible to watch as he's gone from breakout indie director to helming some of the biggest genre blockbusters. After breaking out onto the film scene with his 2013 debut, "Mama," Muschietti went on to direct an epic, two-part horror adaptation of Stephen King's "It" and then tackled "The Flash" for the DCEU. Now, he's set to direct the upcoming "The Brave and the Bold" for James Gunn's rebooted DCU. So, to celebrate Muschietti's continual success and evolution as a director, it's the perfect time to look back at the film that started it all for him — "Mama."

Based on his 2008 short film of the same name, "Mama" follows couple Annabel ( Jessica Chastain ) and Luke (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as they take care of Luke's abandoned nieces who have been living in the woods for five years after being left by their father, Jeffrey (also Coster-Waldau). However, they haven't been living alone as a mysterious and frightening entity has been helping them stay alive and has taken on a motherly role that it's not looking to give up any time soon. Annabel and Luke find this entity to be quite attached to the girls causing horrifying nightmares to become reality. "Mama" was the film that put Muschietti on the map, so let's do a retrospective dive into its ending and the impact it's had on his legacy.

What you need to remember about the plot

Before hopping to the ending of "Mama," let's do a quick recap of the big details of the story. So, Annabel and Luke end up taking care of Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and her younger sister, Lily (Isabelle Nelisse), after they're found in an abandoned cabin. Initially, Victoria and Lily are completely feral and struggle to make a connection with the human world. Slowly though, they become acclimated to civilized living and start to warm up to Annabel and Luke. However, Victoria and Lily unexpectedly bring along a mysterious maternal figure they refer to as Mama (Javier Botet). Mama is an absolute terror for Annabel and she ends up asking Dr. Dreyfus (Daniel Kash) to uncover the truth about this "Mama" figure.

Dreyfus' research and a dream-like vision that Annabel has weaves together the story surrounding Mama, who is actually the ghost of a troubled woman named Edith. Centuries prior, Edith was sent to an asylum and had her child taken from her. One day, she was able to escape and reclaim her baby before running into the woods while others pursued her. Eventually, she runs towards a cliff and decides to jump off with her baby in hand. However, they hit a branch on the way down causing her baby to get snagged and for Edith to drown in the water below. Now, Edith looks to reenact this event with Victoria and Lily since her spirit can't move on.

What happened at the end of the movie

Through everything that Annabel learns in Dr. Dreyfus' research, she discovers that Edith doesn't realize that her baby was snagged by a branch when they were falling. Thus, Edith's spirit was never able to fully be laid to rest and now lives on as this "Mama" entity and plans to take Victoria and Lily over the same cliff she jumped off of many years ago.

However, Annabel finds the corpse of Edith's baby in Dreyfus' files and brings it to the cliffs before Mama can take Victoria and Lily. The sight of her dead baby's corpse causes Edith to reappear and be visibly distraught by this realization. However, Lily's cries for Mama lead her to attack and nearly kill Annabel and Luke before bringing the girls toward the cliff.

Annabel puts up a fight to keep them from going with Mama though and although her efforts don't stop Mama, it does lead to Victoria choosing to stay with her new parents. Lily doesn't make the same choice though and Lily and Victoria have a tearful goodbye before Mama and Lily float over the cliff. Mama and Lily become shrouded by a shadowy cloak before plummeting towards the hanging branch, but the two share a loving embrace before they collide with the branch and explode into a flurry of moths. One of the moths lands on Victoria's hand and it now makes her believe that Lily is with her in spirit.

What does the end of the movie mean

It's no surprise that a film titled "Mama" has themes surrounding motherhood, but there's actually a lot to talk about with its ideas — mainly Annabel's arc and depiction as a newfound mother. Although Annabel isn't shown to be ready for motherhood in her introduction as she celebrates the negative result of her pregnancy test, she eventually comes to see her impact as a mother. Not only does she grow a stronger bond with the girls, but she even develops an empathy for Mama's pain from losing her child.

Her decision to try and alleviate Edith's anguish by showing her the corpse of her baby is a strong change in her arc and her constant fight to save Victoria and Lily shows her undying will to protect her children — a staple to any mother. This unique depiction of motherhood is actually something that Chastain has openly said she loves about Annabel as a character. In a press roundtable promoting the film (via We Got This Covered ), Chastain discussed how "it's not that Annabel becomes a mother, but she becomes a hero of people." For Chastain, she believes that this experience makes Annabel become something more and it ultimately leads to her arc being a re-defining depiction of motherhood in film.

Another explanation

Another key theme in "Mama" is how it depicts nature vs. nurture — which is a psychological debate of whether our characteristics and instincts are developed from biological traits or our distinctive upbringing — through Victoria and Lily's arcs. For Lily, she has no memories of a life before Mama because she was so young when her father abandoned her and it's a key reason why she decides to go with Mama in the end. Regardless of the connection that's been built lately with Annabel, there's just something inside her that makes her see Mama as her true mother and it's why she's willing to go with her to the very end.

Victoria on the other hand does know a life before Mama and has an understanding that Annabel could be a great mother to her based on the experience she's had with her lately. While Mama did help take care of her for many years, Victoria understands that the life she had with her isn't one worth living and that Annabel can provide the kind of mothering and guidance that she really needs. She even understands that it's better for Lily to go with Mama and it's what makes the ending so tragic yet meaningful. So, Lily and Victoria represent the core elements of the nature vs. nurture debate, respectively, and they're what make "Mama" a multi-faceted look at motherhood.

What does the cast and crew think

Along with the film, itself, providing themes and ideas surrounding motherhood through its story and characters, both director Andy Muschietti and other members of the crew have talked about their feelings on the ending and the impact of the film. In an interview with Cinemablend , visual effects supervisor Ed Taylor said that "Mama" is about hope."It's about what a parent is — how do you define a parent? And it's about fighting for what you love," Taylor explained. This definitely rings true in the final stretch as Annabel takes more of a stand against Mama and puts up a stronger fight to save Victoria and Lily.

In the same interview, Muschietti delved into Annabel's transformation a bit and talked about how she isn't exactly your typical hero. "This is a woman who, by accident, from one day to the next has to take the responsibility of raising two little children who aren't hers. She's a reluctant hero," said Muschietti. This explanation is reflected in Annabel's arc; it's what makes her turn toward motherhood so compelling and adds to the impact and meaning of the film's name.

What the ending could mean for the franchise

Believe it or not — even though the ending of "Mama" feels incredibly definitive — there have been talks of a sequel for quite some time. However, it doesn't seem like one is coming any time soon. "Mama" was released to decent reviews from fans and critics back in 2013 and ended up having a great box-office haul of roughly $148 million against a budget of around $15 million.

So, it's not surprising that Universal had planned to do a sequel and possibly expand it into a bigger franchise. In an interview with Screen Daily , former Universal executive, David Kosse, mentioned that "We [Universal] think there's potential for a 'Mama' franchise," but he also highlighted that conversations around a sequel were in the early stages at the time.

However, they did eventually bring on "Pet Semetary" filmmaking duo, Dennis Widmeyer and Kevin Kolsch, to write and direct a sequel in 2016, but news on their progress has been minimal for quite some time. Frankly though, even if the sequel eventually starts to gain momentum in its development it's unlikely that Chastain would return to star — at least according to some insider reporting from The Wrap back in 2016. Still, though, it has been a while since that reporting and maybe Chastain could want to return. However, fans of "Mama" likely shouldn't be expecting a sequel any time soon.

Could there have been an alternate ending?

While some films have multiple endings or a lot of alternate endings that never made it to the final cut, that wasn't exactly the case for "Mama" and there's a specific reason for that. For Andy Muschietti and producer Guillermo del Toro , the heartbreaking elements of the ending are a necessary part of the film. In an interview with SlashFilm , they discussed why keeping the film's initial ending was so important. Although there was some belief that Universal executives might kill the film's original ending, Muschietti believed that "[it's] the only ending possible." "You start thinking this girl [Lily] can be recovered, but there's nothing to be recovered too because she doesn't know this world," said Muschietti, "so that's the happy ending, her going to Mama."

Del Toro heavily agreed with Muschietti and even talked about how dedicated he was to see this ending being the film's true ending. "I was amassing the weapons of mass destruction in case it was needed," said del Toro, "We financed the movie in a way that we had autonomy in the decisions." Luckily, del Toro mentioned that they didn't have to fight much since Universal also liked the ending so their vision for "Mama" was able to be maintained and accepted without any talks of an alternate ending.

How has the film has impacted Muschietti as a director

As mentioned before, the success and acclaim for "Mama" really set Andy Muschietti's career off excellently and he's been one of the most prominent rising forces in directing. Not only has Muschietti elevated his horror vision through his two incredible adaptations of "It" — which has redefined what a Stephen King adaptation can be — but now he's moved into the comic book movie space with "The Flash."

"The Flash" kicks off a new chapter in Muschietti's film career and shows that he can direct emotional and action-packed narratives outside of the horror genre — which is likely why he's already been tapped to direct more DC adaptations. Shortly after its release, it was announced that Muschietti is now set to direct the upcoming DCU film, "The Brave and the Bold" — which will follow Batman as he develops his relationship with his son, Damien, who becomes the new Robin.

Given that Gunn has sung continual praise for "The Flash" since taking over the DCU, it's no surprise that he would want to bring Muschietti along for the ride. Muschietti's journey as a director has been what most dream of — starting in a small yet personal film that builds towards a bigger and more thriving career.

How is the film looked back upon

Upon its initial release, "Mama" had a little bit of mixed reception from critics and audiences as many saw it as an indie horror film with an interesting concept that's seen as a little confusing. On Rotten Tomatoes , the "Critics Consensus" blurb reads as so: "If you're into old-school scares over cheap gore, you'll be able to get over Mama 's confusing script and contrived plot devices." So, while it might not have been as beloved back in its initial showing, "Mama" has not only grown a fairly substantial cult following but has also been given some credit for being a unique horror movie that wasn't generally seen for the time.

John Squires of Bloody Disgusting wrote in a retrospective piece that "Mama" is a film that showcased Andy Muschietti's potential as a visionary and was a film that went against the norm for the typical Hollywood horror film. With ["Mama"] Muschietti proves that he's a visionary filmmaker of the highest order, wrote Squires. He continued, saying that "Muschietti's debut feature is less a run-of-the-mill horror film and more a striking piece of dark art. In more ways than one, it's quite unlike anything you'd ever expect to see in a Hollywood-made horror film." It's also fair to say that "Mama" predated and proved the potential of the indie horror space — which is undeniably thriving — so "Mama" continues to have a big impact and influence on the genre.

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Mama movie review & film summary (2013)
Very few horror movies would last past the second act if the characters in these films were actually fans of horror movies. Some time after the first occurrence of Scary Old Timey Music Wafting Through the Vents, after Creepy Bugs Fluttering Inside the House and certainly by the time of the "Accidental" Fall That Sidelines a Key Character — well, that's when any red-blooded, movie-going ...
Mama
Rated: 2.5/5 Jan 9, 2017 Full Review Louis Black Austin Chronicle Haunting and extremely atmospheric, Mama is a horror film imbued with an unsettling and affecting power.
Mama
Mama - review. Philip French. Sat 23 Feb 2013 19.03 EST. T his self-consciously stylish Hispanic horror movie is the feature debut of the Argentinian Andrés Muschietti, who has co-scripted it ...
Mama (2013)
¨A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again.¨ Another South American director has made his splash on Hollywood after the successful debut of Mama in theaters this year. Argentinean director, Andres Muschietti, made over 70 million dollars in the box office and received decent reviews for this horror/suspense film based on a short 3 minute movie he ...
Movie Review
Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and her sister, Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse), are near-feral orphans in the horror thriller Mama . Universal Pictures. Mama. Director: Andrés Muschietti. Genre: Horror ...
Mama (2013)
Mama: Directed by Andy Muschietti. With Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse. After a young couple take in their two nieces, they suspect that a supernatural spirit named Mama has latched onto their family.
Mama: Film Review
By Todd McCarthy. January 15, 2013 11:28pm. A playful, elegantly made little horror film, Mama teasingly sustains a game of hide-and-seek as it tantalizes the audience with fleeting apparitions of ...
Mama
Mama may not be the go-to horror film, but in the season of honoring mothers, it is the perfect film for the horror fanatic. Full Review | May 6, 2022.
Mama (2013 film)
Mama is a 2013 supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Andy Muschietti in his directorial debut and based on his 2008 Argentine short film Mam ... Mama received mixed reviews from critics, with many praising the performances and atmosphere, with criticism for plot and writing. The film was a box office success, grossing $148 million ...
Mama (2013)
35 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com. 83. The A.V. Club Tasha Robinson. Plenty of horror movies are willing to settle for making audiences jump. Mama is more ambitious by far: It makes sure viewers are emotionally committed even when they aren't clutching their armrests or covering their eyes. 75.
'Mama,' From Andy Muschietti, With Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Mama. Directed by Andy Muschietti. Horror, Thriller. PG-13. 1h 40m. By Manohla Dargis. Jan. 17, 2013. Guillermo del Toro, the reigning godfather of motion-picture horror, is the modern-day Val ...
Mama
Mama - review. Extended from a 2008 short and starring Jessica Chastain, this has become a proficient, machine-tooled horror flick. Xan Brooks. Thu 21 Feb 2013 16.50 EST. I t is the first law of ...
Movie Review
Lilly and Victoria provide a haunting presence at the heart of Mama, a horror film backed by executive producer Guillermo del Toro. The family psychologist with nefarious motives is but one ...
Mama Movie Review
Parents Need to Know. Parents need to know that Mama is a horror movie starring Jessica Chastain and produced by Guillermo Del Toro. It's very light on blood and gore, but there are lots of powerfully scary, spooky images, as well as scenes of young children in danger. Language is light (with one use of "f--k" and….
Mama
Movie Review. Once, years ago, there was a frightened daddy who did bad things. ... Mama is an intelligent film with strong statements to make about the life-changing impact of love ... it would be understandable if you heard the words horror flick and immediately imagined a gory blood-gush or a low-tech, shaking-camera jump-fest. But ...
Mama
This review contains spoilers. It's a bit of a clunker. ... Mama is a horror film made by someone who loves horror, but has no idea what makes them work. Read More Report. 3. Kaaren Jan 22, 2015 Same old, same old. People making stupid decisions that normal people, even when they are at their dumbest, wouldn't possibly dare make.
Mama Review
Mother issues -- and mothers with issues -- are nothing new to the horror genre. You've got the moms who torture and haunt (Norman Bates' mommy, Carrie's overzealous matriarch, Pamela Voorhees ...
Mama (Movie Review)
Mama marks the feature film debut of director Andrés Muschietti. Inspired by his short film of the same title , Mama revels in archaic horror tropes; favoring the terrors of primordial nature, feral humanity, madness, ghosts moaning in the night, and the return of the repressed. The film is drenched in fiercely aggressive shadows, tightly framed locations, and more than a
‎Mama (2013) directed by Andy Muschietti • Reviews, film
On paper, this Andy Muschietti film should be terrifying especially since the ghost design is damn scary. This horror drama also features decent performances from the kids and a goth Jessica Chastain. There's gasp-worthy sequences that fully committed to Mama's eerie atmosphere and the climax is chilling. Considering the ghost's purpose a ...
Review: 'Mama' is a witch's brew of frights and faults
Review: 'Mama' is a witch's brew of frights and faults. Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie "Mama" are the fake tattoos ...
'Mama' Review
In terms of direction, Mama is a pretty strong debut for Muschietti. The cinematography is dark but vibrant (full of earthen tones) and the sequences are all visualized and constructed in sharp, creative ways. Most of the film is confined to two locations (the woodland cabin where the girls are found and a house where Lucas, Annabel and the ...
Mama
Mama Movie Review. Written by Joel Harley. DVD released by Universal Pictures UK . Directed by Andrés Muschietti Written by Neil Cross, Andrés Muschetti, Barbara Muschetti 2013, 100 minutes, Rated 15(UK) Starring: Jessica Chastain as Annabel Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas/Jeffrey Megan Charpentier as Victoria Isabelle Nélisse as Lilly ...
The Ending Of Mama Explained
Based on his 2008 short film of the same name, "Mama" follows couple Annabel ( Jessica Chastain ) and Luke (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as they take care of Luke's abandoned nieces who have been living ...
Mama (2013) /R/HORROR Official Discussion : r/horror
One of the best horror movies I've seen in a while. It has everything imo. Great cinematography with incredible visuals, interesting characters, some character development, good story that makes you emotional and doesn't feel like it drags on for too long, good cgi work that doesn't make Mama look like a video game character but rather almost like a real person, nice music, there's a lot of ...
Mama (2013) Review
Metascore: ☆ 5.7 /10. Tomatometer: ☆ 6.4 /10. Review Score: ☆ 8 /10. Enjoy unlimited streaming on Prime Video Start your 30-day free trial today. Mama Plot Synopsis: Jeffrey Desange, senior partner of an investment brokerage, has a breakdown after a financial collapse and kills several co-workers and his estranged wife and kidnaps his two ...

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