Those bankers have a lot to answer for

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2013)

This chiller benefits from the name of Guillermo Del Toro amongst the production credits and will be the reason many will view it, including myself who took the bus to Cineworld.
The plot begins with a father and his six and three year old girls crashing the car they are in off an icy road and fleeing to a long abandoned cabin where he pulls a gun to seemingly kill them. Pop has had a pretty rough time of it in the recession and has already killed several people including the girls' mother; those bankers have a lot to answer for. At this point the titular Mama; a maternal ghost makes her appearance and saves the girls.
Five years later and the now feral girls are discovered in the cabin by a couple of huntsmen in the employ of the sisters' uncle and his rock chick girlfriend played by Jessica Chastain. The pair of whom, after a period of assessment are entrusted with the care of the siblings (along of course with the maternal ghost). The scares and chills are ratcheted up from here on as Mama becomes a we bit overprotective (think psychotic Jewish mother on amphetamines with a taste for nursery rhymes and neck snapping) and there follows some moments that genuinely sent chills down my spine. However the director overly relies on the sudden movement loud bang kind of scare which I see as lazy horror film making. As the movie goes on we see more and more, literally of the motherly spectre which to me is a lot less scary than the glimpses we glean of Mama in the earlier stages of the movie.
The movie creaks to a finish with some amateur investigating by the Dr that assessed the girls and their would be aunt into the origin of Mama. For me the denouement was overblown,overextended and ultimately unsatisfying. Which is a bit of a shame as the cast put in solid performances and are deserving of better. The bus fare and entry fee were justified, and overall I think fans of both the genre and Guillermo will be satisfied.