What The Heck Was Mama..?? After 2 hrs. I still don't Know!!

Rating: 4/10 (19 January 2013)

***EXTREME SPOILER ALERT...ENDING REVEALED****
I WARNED YOU!!!!
OK, if you are a pedophile who likes to see little girls dressed mostly in pajamas for about 90% of the film, then you won't be disappointed...BUT..if you are a horror fan...I, like many others, felt cheated, as this could have been a great film.. I won't repeat the plot..read the other reviews, I will just tell you why this movie misses the mark. As others said, this was developed from a short film and it shows... After the creepiness factor and BOO scares are out of the way (and I will admit here that the kids, esp. in the beginning were very creepy) it really is a very simple and thin story line. Like Pans Labyrinth (a vastly superior film) the plot teeters on the edge of a horror film and a fairy tale (albeit. a Grimm style tale) not quite knowing which to be.
Even though horror films are fantasies, I like at least a modicum of believability in the story line, of course within the genre. (a very good example of a pure "ghost story" would be the 1970's film "Ghost Story" with Fred Astaire and a big name cast) First, there is a very sketchy background story, which at least I don't know what the director was trying to say. Was the mad lady who took the baby (eventually becoming the ghost/monster) the REAL mother, or did she just snatch any old baby from the nun's hands? Was the mad woman even a ghost at all? At times she seemed more a Earth spirit than a ghost, and HOW did she become this way? The psychologist seemed to know, but HIS AH HAH moment is not ours to know. He vaguely refers to the sign outside the cabin, but we never know what it means...(another reviewer said it meant Switzerland...SO...??)
Also, the entity called Mama was much scarier when in the shadows..once revealed...it was pathetic..
FILM MAKERS TAKE NOTE..the truly great horror films leave much to the imagination which is far scarier..the unseen is always better than the seen. Example. The best "ghost story" on film IMOP was the 60's film "The Haunting" with Julie Harris...you never see ANYTHING but that movie was one of the best films in it's genre of all time!! Again, what was Mama? A ghost, a creature from another dimension, a elemental spirit??? We just never know, nor do we find out WHY after jumping off a cliff with her "baby" she morphs into an unworldly creature. Even some H.P. Lovecraft mumbo-jumbo would been better than no explanation at all. and the cricket chirping sounds...It seems that after Mimic, every creature sounds like a cockroach or cricket...
Finally the ending.....
SPOILERS
Why is Guillermo del Toro fascinated by killing children in the end of his films? For the shock value? Of course the ends of both Pan's Labyrinth and this film are a bit vague, but at least as mortal beings both girls died...so what if it was a "compromise...Mama takes lily because she still clings to "Mama" and the ethereal world, while Victoria being older, is released to the care of the living in our world...
OK children dying in the end is at least not a cop-out, but it doesn't raise the caliber of this film enough to say...yeah..go see it!