Mama (2013)

All Critics (140) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (93) | 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.

February 20, 2013 Full Review

Nigel Floyd

Time Out

Top Critic

Screenplay contrivances aside, it's as stylish and atmospheric as modern horror gets.

January 25, 2013 Full Review

Drew Hunt

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Even if the beats are familiar, Muschietti sustains a remarkable mood throughout: wintry, elemental and stark, like a late Sylvia Plath poem.

January 24, 2013 Full Review

Dana Stevens

Slate

Top Critic

I was guessing right till the bitter, scary, transcendent end.

January 21, 2013 Full Review

David Edelstein

New York Magazine

Top Critic

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.

January 20, 2013 Full Review

James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Top Critic

The metaphorical mother-child connection becomes a mystical horror show of significant power. Sadly it comes too late to save "Mama."

January 18, 2013 Full Review

Betsy Sharkey

Los Angeles Times

Top Critic

Maternal-instinct-versus-the-monster is such a horror cliché that it feels almost subversive to watch a movie where the protagonist is a reluctant 'mom.'

May 22, 2013 Full Review

Margot Harrison

Seven Days

The story-telling may be a bit confused at times. But, you've got to love the genuine scares and images that "Mama" brings to the table.

May 15, 2013 Full Review

Paul Chambers

Movie Chambers

A creepy and often heartbreaking look at family and how it can empower good. And pure evil.

May 11, 2013 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

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.

May 7, 2013 Full Review

Phil Villarreal

COEDMagazine.com

There's a great horror movie here. Thanks to some assumed interference within the production, Mama is now merely passable.

April 25, 2013 Full Review

Bill Gibron

Film Racket

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.

April 3, 2013 Full Review

Meredith Borders

Badass Digest

In the end the clichés and overly repetitive plot structure can't derail what is a well-played, well-shot horror flick.

March 17, 2013 Full Review

Martin Roberts

Fan The Fire

Just how scary is Mama? Put it this way; if you're suffering from constipation, this'll cure you.

March 17, 2013 Full Review

Jim Schembri

3AW

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.

March 15, 2013 Full Review

Simon Foster

sbs.com.au

[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.

March 11, 2013 Full Review

Dave White

Movies.com

Haunting with its tragically melancholy story, Mama doesn't treat audiences as naïve fools. I am most impressed

March 8, 2013 Full Review

Andrew L. Urban

Urban Cinefile

Mama delivers good old fashioned scares without cheap gross-out and even moves us by its surprising and effectively executed lengthy climactic sequence

March 8, 2013 Full Review

Louise Keller

Urban Cinefile

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.

March 8, 2013 Full Review

Tara Bennett

SFX Magazine

There are just enough twists to the old formula to keep you guessing to the end.

March 5, 2013 Full Review

Andy Lea

Daily Star

The digitally created Mama is spooky in smaller, sudden doses, a spindly, broken-boned corpse-like thing with fingers like tree roots.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Greg Evans

Bloomberg News

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.

February 26, 2013 Full Review

Donald Clarke

Irish Times

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.

February 25, 2013 Full Review

Ed Whitfield

The Ooh Tray

It gradually falls apart the more Muschietti feels the need to explain Mama's backstory.

February 25, 2013 Full Review

Alistair Harkness

Scotsman

Becomes increasingly arbitrary and explicit.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Philip French

Observer [UK]

It is marred by implausible plot developments and, most importantly for a horror film, fails to deliver any scares.

February 22, 2013 Full Review

Virginie Sélavy

Electric Sheep

• 1. Dr. Dreyfuss: Victoria, who is Mama? Can you show her to me?
  – Submitted by Lovino V (3 months ago)
• 1. Annabel: Victoria, what's under the bed?
  – Submitted by Erick T (3 months ago)
• 1. Annabel: [Victoria's voice-mail recording] Leave a message after the beep. F*ck you. Beeep!
  – Submitted by E S (3 months ago)
• 1. Lilly: Victoria.. Mama.. Come.
  2. Victoria: Victoria Stay.
  – Submitted by Taylor R (4 months ago)
• 1. Victoria: GO TO SLEEP!
  – Submitted by Michael C (4 months ago)
• 1. Victoria: Don't look at her!
  – Submitted by Jesse G (4 months ago)