You've seen it all before... a completely forgettable experience

Rating: 3/10 (29 January 2013)

I'm absolutely astounded by the amount of praise this film is getting from critics and audiences. Is this how far we've sunk as filmgoers that we accept whatever so-called horror is thrown our way even if it's a big pile of doo-doo? Mama is yet another jump-scare, cgi ridden, laughable cheese-fest just like so many other myriad "horror" pictures that have come out in recent years. It's not even cheesy in a good way. There's good cheesy horror comedies out there that are done right, such as Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell. It knew that horror and comedy go perfectly together and worked as a result. Mama is cheesy in that it tries way too hard to be scary and it comes off as silly and amateurish, more of an unintentional comedy. Everyone in my theatre was laughing their heads off constantly. I don't think that was the intention.
Granted this film isn't a complete disaster like Boogeyman or Darkness Falls but feels very reminiscent of both those films. Besides the awful CGI ghost, one of the biggest problems with Mama is the overuse of loud noises. Every time something is supposed to be scary, there's an extremely loud noise and usually something flies at the camera really quickly. But it failed to even raise a single hair on my arms or make me scared even for a second. The acting is passable and Jessica Chastain is hot but the plot is nosensical, predictable and has a twist at the end just for the sake of having one in an attempt to save this movie from being completely forgettable. Please folks, don't waste your hard-earned money on sub-par horror movies like this.
If you want a ghost story that is actually well-made and scary, watch the Spanish film The Orphanage. Or wait for the Evil Dead remake in a few months. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell know that great horror isn't about cheap jump scares and by-the-numbers creepiness. Real horror has to get under your skin. It has to get into your head and make you question your own sanity. It has to spark some synapses in your brain and affect you on a subconscious level to truly be scary. See Mulholland Drive by David Lynch for a perfect example. Unfortunately, Mama did none of these things for me and just feels like yet another bargain bin 'horror' title. It's also overlong at 100 minutes and padded with repetitive scenes that add nothing to the film. This is Andrés Muschietti's debut as a feature film director and it shows. He fails to create anything original or worthwhile, simply borrowing from dozens of other horror flicks. 61% on Rotten Tomatoes? 6.6 on the IMDb? For shame.