I Want My Mama

I had heard a lot about “Mama” from various sources ranging from amazing to utter crap, so me being me I put the film into my need to see category and forgot all about it…….until now.

So the film opens with a fairy tale like opening “Once Upon a Time……” cut to an abandoned car in a nice leafy suburb with a nervous looking blonde haired girl. In waltzes her Dad and demands the kids to get ready as they are leaving, cut to them driving down a long isolated wintery road with a snowy forest backdrop and camera angles galore (very reminiscent of “The Ring” Remake). After telling his daughter to shut up they spin off the road and disappear from sight. It’s cut back to the house of the fugitive father and the introduction of his brother Lucas, has a little spat at a copper then we are back to the isolated forest with all three walking away from the wreckage of the car totally unscathed baring broken glasses of the older daughter Victoria. The camera then pans round and we are greeted with a familiar sight which seems to be the flavour of the month in Horror films at the moment………*drum roll*………….Behold it’s an isolated Cabin in the Woods!!! Not forgetting its resident moth. I have to say the dark atmosphere and claustrophobia of the Cabin was well executed using low angles and limited lighting. Dad starts breaking up a few chairs to light the fire and goes off for a cry, where Victoria starts to move to the window and see’s something outside saying “there’s a woman outside and she’s not touching the floor”. A chill went down my spine at this point, thinking is it the ghost of the dead girl’s mother?? Wouldn’t she of recognise her face?? Unless her father had disfigured her? Dad comes back to the girl’s side with a gun ready to dispatch her……..and suddenly loads of CGI hands grab him and dispatch him before he could harm the kids. Cue a scene which would have been perfect in “Poltergeist”……..two little girls sat in darkness with the fire only illuminating a small section and in the darkness you hear strange gurgling noises…………………and thus begins the opening credits………

 In any Horror film I look forward to the music as it hold the fabric of a film together with “Mama” the opening theme reminded me of a piss poor “Harry Potter” with a large chunk of “Edward Scissorhands” thrown in. You can tell which two composers inspired Fernando Velázquez as it is very clear…….John Williams and Danny Elfman. Whilst watching the opening credits a name popped up and I had no idea that he was involved in the film………. Guillermo Del Toro!!! I have seen quite a few of Del Toro’s films and found them highly entertaining and in some cases thought provoking, so I was relaxed in the knowledge we were in for a great film………

5 Years Later………

Enter the brother of the missing father….Lucas…who looked somewhat familiar……..then it finally dawn on me it was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from “A Game of Thrones” he plays a likable character until you come to his girlfriend Annabel played by Jessica Chastain who is so emotionless in every scene she’s in with the same facial expressions. Anyway Lucas has been searching for the two missing girls for 5 years and funds are running out, he had hired two……how can I put it deer stalkers with a bloodhound. They find the trashed car and the Cabin, this is where I got a little confused and had many questions. Was the Cabin Lucas brothers summer retreat as he recognized the name of the Cabin and knew his way round it?…it is never clearly stated, and how the hell the police and other search parties never came across it before is a bit of a mystery. So these two guys enter the Cabin and we are greeted with CGI crawling children making grunting and aggressive movements towards them.

We are then introduced to Dr Dreyfuss a Psychiatrist who has a particular interest in the two girls, as he is explaining to Lucas about the psychological behaviour of the old sister (which I found very interesting) Annabel (Miss Emotionless) utterly trashes the scene by cutting in and saying “what about the other one?” with the right actress this could have been pulled of better, but no with Miss Emotionless the delivery of the lines were so abrupt and totally killed the scene. Lucas goes in with the wild kids and gives Victoria her glasses and she comes round after she puts them one and can see perfectly……I’m really surprised her eye sight hadn’t deteriorated due to the dark environment of the Cabin and eye strain...hahaha. We get a Court scene which more psychological insight is given about the children, and how the psychiatrist can win them the custody battle. Which got me thinking what does Dr Dreyfuss get out of this and why is he so interested in the children? Is his motivation to make a name for himself? Or general curiosity about this particular case? It is never made clear.

Then we hear about Mama, who is she? What is she? I had a preconceived idea it was going to be the dead girl’s mother trying to protect her children from harm and is unable to let go of her parental rights even after death?…..which was later found to be utterly wrong……we you can’t get it right all the time.

The story moves along at a rather slow pace which isn’t a problem as it makes a refreshing change building on the already atmosphere. Mama finally finds the two girls and makes her presence know with moths and attacking Lucas which puts him out of action for a bit... Mama puts him in a coma after pushing him down the stairs. The interviews of Victoria by Dr Dreyfuss reminded me of “The Ring”, what was nice to see the Dr has doubts and decided to investigate Victoria’s story she was told by “Mama” to validate it.

Dr Dreyfuss continues his investigations into what is“Mama”#1…..............*Psychiatric Hospital*

More ghostly goings on and Miss Emotionless still sporting the same facial expressions and tonal qualities is still totally oblivious to what is going on……and a first for Horror she closed the closet door…..I was so relieved as in most Horror films they open it and either two things happen:

1. Something large and nasty jumps out (or),
2. There is nothing there.

By this point I’m getting fed up with the camera angles, every scene with the kids in it it’s long distance angles…..multi angle…..dramatic zoom up angle……it started to become distracting and predictable. However on the up side so far I’m enjoying the film more than “Insidious” especially with the atmosphere and tone of the film.

Dr Dreyfuss continues his investigations into what is “Mama”#2…………………*Dead Baby* 

Dr Dreyfuss's secretary say’s the best quote regarding ghosts  “A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again”. Which was very fitting for the tone the film was trying to make.

Then we see the full blown Mama…….and it’s all crappy CGI……and I mean crappy. All fear and excitement in seeing Mama went in a split second and I just laughed at it……….Mama face reminded me of those grey skinned aliens. I mean did Mama have to be all CGI? How hard is it to get an actress to perform the role with a slight tweak of CGI to enhance the effect and the use of make-up, obviously Hollywood have lost that skill and its CG Bloody I everywhere.

Then came the moment in the film which like “Insidious” made me lose interest in the whole damn film………………….Miss Emotionless “Dream Sequence” which told you EVERYTHING what happened to Mama in a matter of two minutes……………..this simple act totally made the Dr Dreyfuss  investigation totally redundant and pointless as those Two Minutes just showed you didn’t need to have an investigation as Miss Emotionless had a mystical dream and she knows everything about Mama……………*slaps face with hand*

So I lost total interest……….and just wishing the film to just finish…………….a blur of running screaming children………….Miss Emotionless trying to look scared………….. Dr Dreyfuss dies…………..Lucas awaking and recovering from a coma in less than a week…………..CGI galore Ghost “Mama” scenes……………..moving CGI hair on the floor…(I kid you not)…………..procession of a person……………

So finally we come to the end, the part which everyone looks forward to…………………….I don’t know where to begin or how to break it to you all……………..all I can say is WTF!!!! It turns out that Mama wants to kill the children?? Why has she waited 5 bloody years to come to that decision? And just how convenient the Cabin is just a stone throw away from where Mama died. So we are greeted with more shitty CGI of a floating ghost and a bit of a fight and then the film changes tone………..Oh yes changes tone……I was speechless, in fact my mouth hit the floor I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought I was watching a horror film…….but in the last 15mins it turns into……..*deep breath*…… a Disney film. Even the death of the youngest daughter as she falls to her death with Mama is Disneyfied……….”As they fall a glowing light is seen around them and they look at each other in the eyes and smile” and as they hit a branch they both explode into thousands of butterflies and fly away……*arrrrrhh how sweet, reaches for the vomit bag*……………..The last time I looked that youngest daughter was human??

As the end credits roll I suddenly realised……………where did their dog disappeared too?? It entered the closet around the 42 minute mark and was never seen again…….

Verdict: Mama starts of strong with creepy atmospherics and interesting plot. However the story suffers from “stop-start-stop-start” plot as it takes ages especially in the investigation into Mama scenes as they get forgotten and then they are back again and then they are abruptly stopped. CGI overkill which is distracting as the CGI isn’t that good. Pointless dream sequence which totally is out of character of the film and just ruined the film as it made the enjoyment of Dr Dreyfuss investigations with  the evidence mounting up…….“BAM” dream sequence that tells you everything making his involvement in the film pointless. The biggest flaw and let down is the Disney ending………..all in all the film was let down by poor CGI, a plot that shudders along without going anywhere and loses momentum. It’s one film I will not be watching again……..the frustrating thing is “Mama” had a lot of potential to be great but was executed poorly which is a shame. This is what I find really frustrating about “Modern” Horror films they come up with an interesting concept and do either three things:

1. Ruin the entire film by putting a totally pointless explanation (or) revelation which totally contradicts what was said before/or explains everything at the half way point, which makes watching the rest of the film totally pointless.
2. The Director loses interest half way through the film and the plot goes downhill from then on.
3. The ending of the film is either so predictable or anti-climatic it ruins a perfectly good film.