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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Movie Review: Mama

Mama
Release date: January 18, 2013
Director: Andres Muschietti
PG-13, 1 hr. 40 min.
Universal Pictures
Official movie site


Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their mother was murdered. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night. The day their father killed their mother, sisters Victoria and Lilly vanished near their suburban neighborhood. For five long years, their Uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home. (c)Universal 


Mama was fun until it got all touchy feely. Why go there? This is supposed to be a horror movie, so it doesn’t have to have a touchy feely ending. They wanted to make the vengeful ghost sympathetic and she only killed the people who deserved it, but it didn’t work for me.

All the movie scenes happened at night either in the house or in the woods. There was no character development except for the oldest child Victoria and I really liked her. You feel for her, but I didn't feel anything for her sister. There is no acting per say to talk about, the movie just jumped from one ‘suspense’ scene to another. And then there were the moths. That symbolism was completely lost on me. I got nothing.

Mama was a pretty freaking creepy ghost so they got that right, but used all the cliché horror gags. Some fell flat and some were well timed. This is the type of movie you rent for your 13 year old kid’s sleepover and will make you the cool parent for letting them watch it.

3 “would someone explain the freaking moths!” Sheep




Sharon Stogner (edit by Kalpar)




4 comments:

  1. I saw this movie yesterday and I agree with you completely on some points, but I did find it scary and that may have had something to do with the fact I was sitting dead in front of the screen. And symbolism?!?! There was some. Oops. I didn't know.

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    1. Maybe at my age I have read or seen enough 'horror' stuff that it takes more than things jumping out to scare me. I was glad there was no gore in it. I don't like that type of stuff.
      I got the cocoon to moth thing, but I think maggots would have been better moths don't hang around dead bodies. maggots do!

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  2. One thing about the moths that I thought was that they were a symbol or a physical being of Mama. We see in the lake, moths come out of Mama's body and in the hospital Lily is eating moths. It reminded me of a mom breastfeeding her child. She formed a bond with Lily and saw her as her true child since she cared for her from when she was a baby. She had no emotional connection to bones of her actual baby besides her memory of wha happened, she never raised the child so Lily and her sister were her children to her.

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    1. yeah, I figured the moths were her embodiment. But why moths? I guess butterflies would be too cliche and Disney

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