Written by Neil Cross, Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti
Directed by Andy Muschietti
Starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Kash
Canada/Spain/Mexico, 2013
It seems like a theme of Horrorfest 2024 is that bad CGI makes what could be a good horror movie a less-good horror movie, and MAMA is a perfect example of that.
Jessica Chastain stars as the unlikely adopted mother of a couple little girls who survived an attempted family-annihilation and inexplicably hid out in a cabin for years. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is on hand as a doctor who suspects something supernatural might be going on. The younger girl is basically feral, having grown up in the wild, and the other is slightly less feral, having some basic memories of life before the cabin. Both, however, seem enthralled by a presence known only as “Mama,” a creature who we suspect took care of the girls all those years as the adults in the flick try to figure stuff out.
The problems with the CGI come via Mama, a creature who might have been a triumph of art direction if it wasn’t rendered by unconvincing and shoddy effects that rob a lot of the most important scenes of the emotional weight (and scares) they deserve. It’s an interesting premise, lacking in the execution.
It’s nice to see Chastain playing somewhat against type here as a short-haired, tatted-up bassist in a rock band who only reluctantly ends up taking care of these girls by chance. But that’s not enough to save the movie from itself.
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