An unimpressive, unsuccessful attempt to expand a three minute long video clip into a hundred minute long horror movie

Rating: 6/10 (17 March 2013)

The recipe for a good horror movie is as easy to formulate as it is difficult to implement. Roughly speaking, a good horror movie needs to be a) at least somewhat original with a hint of depth; b) at least somewhat coherent without a too-strong artificial flavor; c) at least somewhat scary, but not in a cheap way.
Unfortunately, "Mama" produced by none other than Guillermo del Toro miserably failed in all the three categories. Nevertheless, being a failure from a pure cinematic perspective did not prevent the first-time director Andrés Muschietti s movie from becoming a box office darling: with the production budget of only $15.000.000, "Mama" collected an impressively hefty $118,434,000 worldwide.
A few years ago, Andrés Muschietti had already made a very short three minute long video clip also called "Mama" that was released in Spain in 2009.
It looks like the amateurish short video had generated enough interest in big professional cinema to secure for Andrés Muschietti a golden opportunity of making it into a full-length movie.
The original clip is available on YouTube and while somewhat cute (in a horror movie sense) it strikes me as not containing much substance to build upon.
Judging by the quality of the final product, generating buzz about a three minute long video turned out to be much easier task than actually expanding it into a hundred minute long movie.
The story (Andrés and Babara Muschietti) ends up being so hopelessly unoriginal that it is not even trying to pretend the opposite. It is extremely formulaic and almost exclusively consists of genre clichés. Those waiting for any unpredictable twist or turn of the story end up bitterly disappointed at the end.
Even with all its predictability, "Mama" still somehow manages to remain generally incoherent and (especially, closer to the end) full of obviously contrived coincidences. For example, why was a certain character so stubbornly and shortsightedly trying to visit a scary, menacing location in the middle of a dark gloomy night when he could have easily waited until morning? There is no good explanation for that except the ill wish of the story writers.
As if all of the above was not already upsetting enough, "Mama" generously throws another curve ball to its unsuspecting viewers - the quintessentially cheap kindergarten level scares. These "when somebody jumps out of the corner or from behind your back and nastily screams "Boo"" kind of scares are not what we expect to see in a decent horror movie.
I have to say that my expectations of "Mama" in that area were already reasonably low. I, for example, was not expecting from it anything even remotely comparable to the famous "Mystery Man" scene – a little masterpiece from David Lynch's "Lost Highway" where a potent combination of the subtle makeup, the background sound, and the mind-bending dialog creates a thrilling creepiness of enormous power.
And still, even with the expectations as low as they were, "Mama" somehow managed to disappoint.
It became one more flop in the mixed record of Guillermo del Toro who is generally considered an authority in producing and directing horror movies. What had started with the great "The Devil's Backbone", the powerful "Pan's Labyrinth", and the ultimate masterpiece - "The Orphanage" has regrettably morphed into the simply laughable "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and the utterly mediocre "Mama".
The acting in "Mama" was only so-so, with the three notable exceptions.
The memorable characters created by the wonderful child actors Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse were one of the very few redeeming qualities of the movie. The casting in that respect in my opinion seemed to be superior to that of "Hugo" where the wooden screen duo of Asa Butterfield, and Chloë Grace Moretz looked bland, lacked chemistry, and in general left an artificial aftertaste.
Nominated for two Oscars in two consecutive years ("Zero Dark Thirty" (2013), "The Help" (2012)) Jessica Chastain is undoubtedly one of the best actors of her generation and possibly (only time will tell) of all time. In addition, it looks like she might be one of the very few actors who always shine no matter what, even if they play in a weak movie like "Mama".
While "Mama" 's thin plot does not leave much room for character development, Jessica Chastain somehow manages to go beyond what the clichéd story dictates and adds quite a bit of depth and strong, believable emotion to the otherwise undistinguished character.
The visual effects in "Mama" are mostly solid, more or less imaginative, and even subtle when necessary, but overall they are not breathtaking enough to have any serious independent value. And without an independent value they simply become an unfortunate hostage of the poorly written and implemented movie they are featured in.
In addition, due to certain questionable decisions made in that area, some of the effects in "Mama" look almost too smooth, cartoonish, and fairytale-like to be truly scary. As a result, in some sense they even seem to be inferior to the very basic, but genuine effects from the low budget original video from YouTube.
Overall, "Mama" could have become so much better than what it ended up being! An emotionally involving tragedy, a haunting mystery, a strong trio of lead actors, solid special effects – all those valuable ingredients were essentially wasted on the silly, incoherent, and overall unsatisfying story.
In my opinion, the only reason to watch "Mama" would be enjoying one more great performance of Jessica Chastain. Otherwise, the movie could be safely avoided.
knowyourmovie.blogspot.com