Spirit raised by Girls raised by spirit punks punky Chastain in creepy custody battle from Hell!

Rating: 9/10 (3 March 2013)

Mexican director Guliermo Del Toro is increasingly going the way of Tarantino and Besson, taking promising young talents under his wing and nurturing them into a stable of likeminded auteurs. This is one such project, directed by unknown Andres Muschietti based on his 5 minute short of the same name.
The film, from its trailer and marketing, appears to be yet another in the endless production line of "Look behind you-family in peril from unseen things and sinister shadows-fade to black shock 'What are you? What do you want?-scary noises" identikit horrors, but it is actually refreshingly far from the usual cookie cutter mould.
Inspired by the cold, cerebral Horror-Sci-fi of the 1970s ("Silent Running" gets a notable name drop) and blended with the more modern strain of tragic ghost stories from Japan, Korea and of course Del Toro himself, the film has a very interesting premise, and even more unusual execution.
Starting with a story ripped from our own headlines, we follow a desperate father, bankrupted in the 2008 crash, killing his associates and wife, before taking his 2 infant daughters to die with him in a suicide murder. But taking refuge in the woods, these victims of modern tragedy encounter the ghostly victim of an earlier one, Edith Eames, a Victorian Downs Syndrome sufferer who gave birth in an asylum (we can imagine how she got pregnant..) but wouldn't give up her baby and ran off with it, jumping to her death off a high cliff pursued by locals. Though looking rather ghastly (apart from her condition she is also broken and bent by the fall and rotted by the river water) and having a very scary way of moving, including going through walls and floors, Edith is no villain and takes care of the two girls, raising them as her own as best she can, until they are found 5 years later by their uncle, comic book artist Lucas (Nicolaj Coaster-Waldau) and his punk rocker girlfriend Annabel (an unrecognisable "Gothed up" Jessica Chastain) and taken into their custody. Feral, wild, barely able to speak, and in constant communion with Edith, who they have simply taken to calling "Mama", they excite the interest of psychiatrist Dr Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash as a typical cold hearted, untrustworthy, science before human beings 1970s horror shrink) Dreyfuss puts the skid row pair in a fancy mansion to study the kids dynamic, but quickly realises there are parapsychological forces at play, and tracks Edith's history and past down. With Edith becoming increasingly angry and jealous at the interlopers, it soon becomes a custody battle from Hell, with the two girls, Victoria and Lilly, increasingly divided in loyalty. Victoria, the older one who remembers her past life, gravitates towards Annabelle and a return to normality, but younger Lilly, who has only ever known Edith, sticks strongly to her ghostly adopted mother no matter what.
The "monster" Edith/Mama is, as you might gather, rather more sympathetic than the usual angry spirits of the genre. Although horrific, and capable of murder (though in defence of her adopted children, and only killing unpleasant characters) she is motivated by love and the need to love, a need she was denied 140 years before. She is a sort of amalgam of "The Woman in Black", the protective ghost of Irena in "Curse of the Cat People" and Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride". She provides plenty of scares, usually popping up in corners or behind doors just in the angle of the frame for that "shudder" effect, and is well rendered and delivers the nightmare chills we expect, but to their credit Muschietti and Del Toro give her the pathos and understanding such a character deserves. This is especially true of the films controversial and much derided ending. Rather than concluding everything with violence and Sturm und Drang, they follow through the story that has preceded it and give us a resolution that is apt and lyrically poetic, (similar in many ways to the endings of "The Corpse Bride" and "The Matrix" trilogy) which is more likely to jerk tears than raise hairs. The die-hard Horror fans may naturally feel short changed, but it is a beautiful and moving final note, showing the film's Latin origins over the usual blood and guts practicality of the Anglo tradition.
Acting wise, the ever rising Jessica Chastain excels once again, barely recognisable in her punky Goth get up, but beneath the cliché rock band chick is a beating human being, one who responds to the situation thrust upon her as best she can. Again, whereas an Anglo-American film would thrust Annabelle's new found maternal position down our throats with the old disingenuous "a woman's true happiness" line, here she grows to love the girls through simply being with them, without ever becoming "a mom". She sympathises with Edith's plight, and does not try to make herself out to be "the better mother". As her boyfriend Lucas (and his homicidal twin from the intro) "Game of Thrones" hunk Waldau gives a balanced and natural persona, someone who like Annabelle is trying to make the best of a bad situation. Kush is also good as the 1970s style sinister man of science, though he too remains sympathetic despite his generic role.
All in all "Mama" delivers more than the trailers promise, with solid acting, a nice retro style, real chills and horrible thrills, an original storyline and a pathos filled, lyrical sadness that elevates it to a higher artistic plain. Just remember to bring some handkerchiefs for the finale!