Yo mama so ugly...

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2013)

Another dark fairy-tale horror from the Guillermo Del Toro stable, Mama is an initially touching tale of despair and abandonment that unfortunately develops into a frustratingly mediocre ghost story severely hampered by the usual culprits—bad CGI effects, digital colour tinting, and worst of all, incredibly cheap scares.
As a director, Andrés Muschietti clearly has a keen understanding of his medium, delivering some striking imagery, effectively conjuring up a creepy atmosphere, and commanding superb performances from child stars Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse, but his writing isn't as strong, his derivative script failing to bring much in the way of originality to the tired genre. Once the true nature of Mama's supernatural element becomes apparent, the film becomes a mess of clichés and predictability.