When Guillermo del Toro presents (or produces) something, it usually means you’re in for a throwback horror film that creates suspense by not showing (or at least making you wait to see) whatever creatures are instilling the fear. And he tends to gravitate towards stories in which children are a conduit for some supernatural force, which offers an added creepiness.
Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) still displays feral tendencies while Victoria (Megan Charpentier) adjusts a little better in "Mama." Photo courtesy Universal Pictures.
Looking more like the great Spanish horror film The Orphanage than the critter-fest Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (which you can read about here), Mama is based on a Spanish-language short film by Andres Muschietti, who directs this full-length version. Mama definitely has the kind of creepiness that is present in most of del Toro’s offerings, focusing on two young girls who spend most of their formative years fending for themselves in a cabin in the woods. That is, of course, after their father murders their mother, kidnaps the girls and inadvertently careens off an icy mountain road in a fit of rage. It turns out the Blair Witch-like house he finds is haunted by a similarly malevolent spirit, which disposes of the frenzied father just before he turns his gun on his daughters.
When the girls are finally rescued five years later, there’s obviously a bit of adjusting to be done. Their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain) agree to take the girls in when the doctor overseeing their recovery (Daniel Kash) offers them a housing upgrade in exchange for his continued observation and input. It all seems like an ideal situation, especially when Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) gradually begin to shed some of their feral tendencies and adapt to their more sterile environment.
Annabel (Jessica Chastain), Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) and Victoria (Megan Charpentier) aren't the only ones in the house! Photo by George Kraychyk.
As if this sudden unplanned parenthood wasn’t a big enough strain for the couple (especially Chastain’s raven-haired rocker), it soon becomes apparent that the girls have brought some intangible presence back from the woods with them. Lights begin flickering, large moths begin appearing, strange sounds emerge from the girls’ bedroom and the uncle ends up in a coma after being knocked down the stairs of his new home. It’s all quite frightening, especially since Mama doesn’t let you see this presence responsible for all this chaos. At least not at first.
It’s established in the opening scenes that the younger Victoria (Morgan McCgarry) wears glasses. And the first glimpse of the maternal monster is from Victoria’s perspective after her glasses have been shattered in the car accident. After the girls are found, Victoria is given a new pair of glasses, which she chooses to take off whenever Mama is present. So all we get for maybe the first third of the film is a blurry view of some misshapen specter. But once Mama makes her presence more obvious, she suddenly starts appearing very clearly on screen, which pretty much destroys any mystery that had previously been established. So by the film’s climax, this ghost is getting as much screen time as the humans she is terrorizing.
Annabel (Jessica Chastain) prepares to confront whatever is hiding in the closet. Photo courtesy Universal Pictures.
There’s still some tension to be felt as the maternal instinct of Chastain’s character kicks in to challenge Mama, whose background is explained as the doctor’s research leads him to some shocking discoveries. And the performances within the film certainly help convey this fear, especially that of Chastain, who is on a roll with equally impressive outing in recent films Lawless and Zero Dark Thirty (which you can read about here and here). But revealing too much too soon hinders the dramatic effect of the finale, which is oddly happy despite the tragic fate of some of the characters.