Mama - More Horrific Than Horror

Rating: 4/10 (27 February 2013)

Read full review here: http://www.thewildbore.com/2013/02/review-mama/
Del Toro seems to be doing this a lot lately. He seems obsessed with sticking his name to horror films with kids as the central focus. It's a strange hobby for him to take up seeing as his film Pan's Labyrinth eclipses all of them, but yet he clearly sees the passion in these directors and puts his own name, credibility and money behind them. It's an honourable thing to do by allowing the next generation to get a crowbar into an industry that only takes on it's own. However, it can be argued as a strange exploitation. After all, can you name the director of Mama? It's Andres Muschietti but you won't see his name splattered all over the adverts. It brings to mind the whole Poltergeist thing in 1982 when Spielberg's name was all over the film and poor old Tobe Hooper kicked up a fuss about it (and rightly so). Though Spielberg had taken over the set apparently. Bloody Spielberg. But this is besides the point
Muschietti had made a wonderful short of the same name in 2008 and Del Toro loved it so much that he gave him the opportunity to turn it into a full feature. It's a shame because it should have stayed a short and definitely had more of an impact in 3 minutes than it did in 90.
That isn't to say it's a bad film. In fact, it starts with much promise. Two young girls have had a rather strange upbringing and their special protector is Mama, someone we see in the shadows but that becomes more prominent as the film continues. Jessica Chastain plays a rock chick having to turn mother with a very patient and supremely talented Nikolaj Coaster- Waldau as the uncle with a heart. The pairing of these two is a great heavyweight combo of new talent but unfortunately it's wasted here. The same goes with the little girls who actually do a very good job and show a lot of promise.
The problem lies with the fact that this film is just a sequence of set-pieces, none of which are really scary but more 'jumpy' and at times laughable. Mama herself is given a backstory (do I care?), characters seem to do the craziest things (why does everyone keep going to the cabin at night? or wandering around lost?), Mama isn't really scary (is she giving people a hicky?) and so CG it hurts (if I see it, it isn't scary). There are a couple of good bits but it's not shocking and definitely won't make you scared of bumps in the night. The dialogue is clunky and the pace quite slow with an idea clearly trying to be fleshed out into a story that just doesn't work.
Even if you take into account the metaphor of Mama being Chastain's embodiment of her fear of motherhood, the ending just doesn't make sense. In fact, it might be one of the worst endings I've seen in a horror for a while. It's supposed to be a beautiful, elegant ending but instead is irritable and stupid to say the least. The fact that it's so jumpy also means that it takes the value out of watching it again, which I might do on a Friday night with nothing to do, but wouldn't go out of my way for.
I have to say it's better than Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, which isn't hard to do but not nearly as good as The Orphanage. I was very excited about seeing this and I should have known better, horror is just getting worse and worse and not in a good way.