Certainly watchable and suspenseful at times, but it is pretty routine stuff

Rating: 6/10 (8 February 2014)

(Credit IMDb) Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for 5 years.... but how alone were they?
For some reason, I was dreading this when it was first announced. The title sounded so stupid to me and it seemed like just another horror movie to make some quick cash and disappoint me, like so many Horror movies do these days. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. It has some decent boo scares and the potential was there for this to be a standout horror film, but sadly it didn't meet that potential. The "Mama" creature is fairly well done and somewhat eerie. The opening is by far the best thing about this film. It involves the wonderfully talented Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau. It is tense, disturbing, and very riveting. After that whole ordeal is through, it never manages to reach those heights again. Jessica Chastain's character created a big problem with me. Her character is virtually unlikable for the first half of the film before she starts coming around. Her abrasiveness was extremely hard for me to warm up to. She did fine with what she was given, but I would have preferred her to be more sympathetic. It's a watchable horror film that has it's moments. For the dreaded "PG" rating, you could do a lot worse.
6.1/10