Big Mama's House.

Rating: 8/10 (28 February 2013)

Originally having some mix feelings to seeing the movie due to having found the trailer unexpectedly disappointing,I began to become very interested in seeing the film as quickly as possible,after reading some comments from fellow IMDb'ers who found the film to be an atmospheric,chilling ghost story,which lead to me deciding,that I would pay,what would hopefully be a pretty special visit to Mama.
The plot-2008:
Crashing his car in an isolated woodland area,Jeffery and his two daughters Lily and Victoria walk around the woods, until they suddenly stumble upon a rusty looking cabin,which they all decide to enter,due to it looking like it has not been inhabited for a number of decades.
Losing all his sense of parental moral after having murdered his wife and business partners,Jeffery prepares to finish the family tragedy by shooting both of his daughters,and then commit suicide.Getting set to kill his first daughter,Jeffery is caught by surprise when a ghost suddenly appears and stops him from firing the gun by breaking his neck.Finding Lily and Victoria to now be on their own,the ghost (who they both call Mama) decides that she will stay with both of them in the cabin,and raise them as if they were her own children.
5 Years later:
Reciving the phone call that they had almost given up on ever receiving,Jeffery's brother Luke and his girlfriend Annabel rush down to a psychological clinic,where they both find out that Victoria and Lily were both found alive and living in a long forgotten woodland cabin.
Getting advice from psychiatric Dr.Gerald Dreyfuss about how to re- introduce the girls to the real world,Annabel and Jeffery begin to fear that the 5 years that Victoria and Lily spent living on their own in the cabin may have had a far greater psychological effect on them then originally expected,due to them catching Lily and Victoria secretly talk to an imaginary motherly figure,who they happily name "Mama"Â…
View on the film:
Unvailing Mama's (who is astonishingly played by a real man!:Javier Botet) full appearance within the first 10-15 minutes of the film,the screenplay by director Andres Muschietti,Neil Cross and Barbara Muschietti take "the villain" out of the dark corners of the screen and into the light early on,so that instead of Mama being a simple 2D baddie,the writers take a refreshing approach by gradually going through the painful, psychological background that has caused Mama to be a damaged soul,which also leads to one of the main characters openly crying over the abuse that Mama experienced.
Whilst the writers do well at building on the background details related to Mama,I feel that the puzzle solving thread that the main characters were attempting to finish was sadly left with a number of pieces missing,with the investigation of the children's imaginary friend Mama by Gerald Dreyfuss, (played by a stern Daniel Kash) giving the film a tense atmosphere of it preparing to deliver a truly knock-out twist,which it disappointingly never unleashes,due to the way that it wraps up Dreyfuss extremely intriguing thread,being one which leads to a strong impression that huge parts of his plot line ended up on the cutting room floor.
Taking the wonderful ending of the movie in a brave direction,the writers make Mama's and the children's connection with nature, (shown from Mama's intro scene where she gives the kids some nuts/berries to eat)one that is deeply entwined to the family connection that Annabel and Luke are trying to straighten towards Lily and Victoria,with the ending of the film being an excellent poetic note,which shows,that in the end no one wins.
Along with putting a recurring moth motif in the film right at the centre, and also featuring suggestion's of reincarnation,which revels that Annabel,Luke and Mama's terrifying battle against each other has been one over getting Victoria and Lily to agree to either live with their "nuclear" parents in Annabel and Luke,or to keep the nature bond that they have with Mama.
Looking gorgeous at being Punk'ed up,Jessica Chastain gives a terrific performance as Annabel.Giving her chillingly atmospheric scenes with Mama a tough edge,by showing,that despite having a ghost trying to kill her,Annabel is not prepared to let a ghost knock her down,Chastain also makes Annabel's relationship between Lily and Victoria (both played perfectly by Isabelle Nelisse and Megan Charpentier) one that delicately progresses from feeling cold and icy towards them,to doing everything in her power to keep a strong grip with Victoria and Lily,who she desperately wants to be as far a way from Mama's supernatural grip as much as possible.
Bringing an unexpected warmth to the film,Nikolaj Costrer-Waldau gives a great,double sided performance as Luke and Jeffery, (something which is oddly not included as an element in the plot) with Waldau showing the warmth Luke has towards Lily and Victoria that Annabel slowly catches,and also impressively,shows Jeffery someone who is dead behind the eyes and at his wits end,who sees that the only thing he can do is to murder his daughters.
Displaying a confidence that most established directors would love to have,from one of the first scenes in the movie where the camera tracks Jeffery going from his car and walking up to a cop,feature film debuting Andres Muschietti uses astonishingly complex,stylised camera moves to create a tremendously chilling, haunting atmosphere.
Fully showing the house that Annabel and the kids find themselves trapped in,in an almost hostage like way,Muschietti expertly sends a shiver down the viewers spine by using the elegant,long tracking shots to build an unforgettable feeling of dread that Mama may be about to appear from the very edge of the screen,and also smartly making some of the most nerve wreaking moments in the film be in-camera tricks,which leads to Muschietti pushing the audience right to the edge of their seats,by making the viewer terrified,that what may originally appear to be children playing in their own shadows,may in fact be Mama's arrival home.