Mama (2013)
Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 137
Fresh: 89 | Rotten: 48
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.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 19 | Rotten: 14
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.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 98,768
My Rating
Movie Info
Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their mother was murdered. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night. The day their father killed their mother, sisters Victoria and Lilly vanished near their suburban neighborhood. For five long years, their Uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his
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Cast
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Jessica Chastain
Annabel -
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Lucas / Jeffrey -
Megan Charpentier
Victoria -
Isabelle Nélisse
Lilly -
Daniel Kash
Dr. Dreyfuss -
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Mama Trailer & Photos
All Critics (137) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (90) | Rotten (48) | DVD (1)
By splitting the action between several different characters and locations, the plot dissipates the suspense and lacks focus, as if it has been bolted together from disparate, ill-fitting pieces.
Top CriticScreenplay contrivances aside, it's as stylish and atmospheric as modern horror gets.
Even if the beats are familiar, Muschietti sustains a remarkable mood throughout: wintry, elemental and stark, like a late Sylvia Plath poem.
I was guessing right till the bitter, scary, transcendent end.
It starts out strongly, using evocative visuals and an unsettling backstory to establish a creepy tableau, but it proves unable to sustain those strengths all the way to the finish line.
The metaphorical mother-child connection becomes a mystical horror show of significant power. Sadly it comes too late to save "Mama."
The movie is all about its off-putting tone and nonsensical shocks, which are all the more unnerving because of how little sense they make.
There's a great horror movie here. Thanks to some assumed interference within the production, Mama is now merely passable.
MAMA's a little silly and a little flawed, but it's a blast, it's original and, most importantly, it carries genuine emotional weight.
In the end the clichés and overly repetitive plot structure can't derail what is a well-played, well-shot horror flick.
Just how scary is Mama? Put it this way; if you're suffering from constipation, this'll cure you.
There are lots of shocks but no real surprises in Andres Muschietti's Mama, a grimy, unpleasant Canadian-Spanish co-production from the stable of Guillermo del Toro.
[Andy Muschietti, Neil Cross, Barbara Muschietti and Guillermo del Toro] have an intuitive understanding of internalized chaos... and, best of all, the pleasures of a really cool, skinny-limbed death-entity living in the closet.
Haunting with its tragically melancholy story, Mama doesn't treat audiences as naïve fools. I am most impressed
Mama delivers good old fashioned scares without cheap gross-out and even moves us by its surprising and effectively executed lengthy climactic sequence
Very European in its direction, aesthetic and narrative, Mama possesses a strong, emotional core that will surprise those jaded by some of the lazier horror titles of late.
There are just enough twists to the old formula to keep you guessing to the end.
The digitally created Mama is spooky in smaller, sudden doses, a spindly, broken-boned corpse-like thing with fingers like tree roots.
If you can swallow the porcelain Chastain as a tattooed bass player in a punk band, then the supernatural hooey will not seem in any way hard to believe.
It seems churlish to admonish Andrés Muschietti for pushing our buttons so effectively for much of the running time, but one wonders how many variations on this increasingly well-worn theme remain.
It gradually falls apart the more Muschietti feels the need to explain Mama's backstory.
Becomes increasingly arbitrary and explicit.
It is marred by implausible plot developments and, most importantly for a horror film, fails to deliver any scares.
It's an original concept but still uses horror clichés to signal shocks - loud noises, slamming doors and flickering lights.
Bloody scary.
Mama is an old-fashioned offering that's low on gore and high on atmosphere, not unlike some of the better Japanese shockers that came out after The Ring.
Audience Reviews for Mama
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- Dr. Dreyfuss: Victoria, who is Mama? Can you show her to me?
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- Annabel: Victoria, what's under the bed?
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- Annabel: [Victoria's voice-mail recording] Leave a message after the beep. F*ck you. Beeep!
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- Lilly: Victoria.. Mama.. Come.
- Victoria: Victoria Stay.
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- Victoria: GO TO SLEEP!
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- Victoria: Don't look at her!
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Corny ending- *Spoiler ALERT* | 7 days ago | 0 |
| Bad Movie | 13 days ago | 5 |
| No good. | 15 days ago | 0 |
| GREAT if you like psychological horror | 25 days ago | 0 |
| This is a horrible remake of the original | 25 days ago | 20 |
Latest News on Mama
April 30, 2013:
Digital Multiplex: Jack Reacher, Mama and MoreThis week in streaming, we've got a Tom Cruise actioner, an effective fright flick, a thriller...
January 20, 2013:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: Mama Tops, Arnold Flops Over MLK WeekendThe supernatural thriller Mama knocked out the competition opening at number one with a sensational...
January 17, 2013:
Critics Consensus: Arnold Makes a Satisfying Return in The Last StandThis week at the movies, we've got a border skirmish (The Last Stand, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger...
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Foreign Titles
- Mamá (ES)
Mimic is by far Del Toro's most interesting work to date and while it does has it's flaws it still has imagination and originality in it that he has never again matched since then. Same cannot be said Del Toro's overrated Pan's Labyrinth which is still too polished for it's own good and resembles like a Tim Burton at his most corniest and weakest. But while Del Toro was a producer for this feature film directed by Andres Muschetti it is still Muschietti's flaw mostly to rely on heavy CGI which is quite honestly extremely ridicilous at some points. There are some moments of geniune eeriness, but mostly this is just one of those familiar scary films that cheaply uses loud noises way too many times to gain shocks from the audience.
Mama includes the first truly average performance from Jessica Chastain, but with a screenplay this weak there is not a much for here to do here so the blame is not her's entirely. Kids are typically lifeless and very one dimensions as are most of the sidecharacters. Muschietti throws in many pointless sideplots and has cooked up an extremely unsatisying climax which does not bother to explain anything. It is a classic case of a story that has too much ambition for it's own good.
Overall there is nothing interesting or fresh enough here to actually recommend this film. I found it hollow, lifeless and without true moments of horror in it. It is like any other below average horror-films that gets released these days. If you are looking for a well made horror-fantasy then you will not find it here. This is a lame debut from Muschietti who hopefully delivers better film next time. However this film does not certainly promise him a bright future in a horror-genre.