Saturday, May 25, 2013

Mama

I like a good ghost story. Especially when it is as pretty as this. Sure, it looks goth and is macabre, but I find it pretty nonetheless.

Jessica Chastain (sporting an unfortunate hairdo) stars alongside Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (of Game of Thrones fame) as couple Annabel and Lucas taking care of two little girls named Victoria and Lily. When Luke's twin brother went of the rails five years back, he shot two work associates and his wife and took off into the woods with his two girls. They ended up in a cabin, also inhabited by a ghost, who mainly lived in the wall.

After the ghost did away with the father, the girls spent the next five years there, growing savage and calling the creature Mama. Luke never gave up looking for his brother and nieces and they were eventually found and after spending some time in psychiatric care, were handed over to him and Annabel, while under the watch of one Dr. Dreyfuss, who slowly pieced together the story of this Mama the girls keep referring to.

Unfortunately, Mama came with the girls into the new house and becomes very jealous of Annabel. Luke ends up in a hospital after a fall down the stairs and Annabel is left to fend for herself. She finds out the story Dr. Dreyfuss has pieced together after he disappears while trying to solve the enigma of Mama by going back to the cabin the girls were found in (he doesn't make it out again).

Mama was separated from her own child when held in an insane asylum. She escaped, kidnapped the baby and ended up falling down a cliff with the child. While Mama fell into the water, the baby's blanket got caught on a branch and the two were again separated in death. She haunted the area looking for her baby ever since. Annabel and Luke try to get rid of the ghost by offering the remains of the child, that had been stored away in some government facility because nobody ever came to claim them, as a trade for Victoria and Lily. In the end, they have to make a huge sacrifice.

Some of this is truly scary. One can recognize Guillermo del Toro's producing hand in this.

8/10


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