By Carys Dennison.
In recent years, it has seemed to have almost become horror film protocol that characters are always moving into new suburban houses. These houses, of course, always seem to have a closet that should permanently remain untouched under all circumstances. In the newly released Spanish-Canadian paranormal horror Mama, it’s not just the new house or closet you should be wary of, you should really watch out for what’s hiding in those walls, too.
Directed by first-timer Andrés Muschietti, Mama is the tale of two little girls who are followed by an angry spirit entity that will inevitably inflict many years of therapy upon those it terrorises. With Guillermo del Toro (creator of the critically acclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth) as executive producer, much of the haunting imagery throughout is beautifully executed with Toro’s renowned fairytale stylisation.
Indeed, in true fairytale style, Mama even begins with the words ‘Once upon a time…’ (Of course, this is written in child’s handwriting, just for those extra creeps). Following the financial crisis of 2008, overwrought business-man Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has murdered his two business partners and his estranged wife. Later that day, Jeffrey hurries home, grabs his two daughters and is next seen frantically driving them through a snow-capped mountain path. Ignoring the pleas of his oldest daughter, Victoria (Megan Charpentier), to slow down, Jeffrey crashes the car and then leads his two children to an abandoned cabin in the woods. Once inside, Jeffrey tells Victoria to look out of a window as he unsteadily raises a pistol to the back of her head. However, before he has time to be hated by the entire audience, a supernatural force manifests itself, and, after making a lot of gargling noises, ultimately kills him.
Five years later, Jeffrey’s twin-brother Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has hired a search-group to find his supposedly lost brother and two nieces. All the while when this is going on, Jeffrey’s girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) is just relieved to find out that she is not pregnant… little does she know what she is in for. Soon after, Jeffrey’s search-group finds the elusive abandoned cabin, along with the two little girls. Needless to say, a lot can happen in five years, especially as the girls have now adopted an animal-like way of moving and now choose to only growl as a form of communication.
The girls are soon taken into psychiatric care and, after some observation, psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) concludes that the girls have manifested a make-believe maternal guardian called Mama during their time in the abandoned cabin. This theory itself would perhaps form the basis for a highly interesting psychological film, however, the genre of paranormal horror often forgoes any predominant logical rationality and it is therefore not a path meant to be explored. Reluctant by Annabel, Lucas decides to take the girls into his care and they soon all move into a new house that is given to them courtesy of the psychiatric institute. Thus, here begins Mama’s dark decent onto the new happy family and the terror and fright that she will undoubtedly cause.
Brother and sister team Andrés and Barbara Muschietti wrote the script for Mama, and, although the screenplay is certainly not innovative in its content, it does cater well to what a modern audience would expect from a paranormal horror and remains loyal to the plot conventions of the genre. The characters within the film appear to be rather two-dimensional and mainly seem to only serve as torture toys for the antagonistic force of Mama, however, the character of Annabel in particular does in fact have a surprising character arc that indeed adds to the overall realism of the film.
As in many paranormal horrors, the first three quarters of Mama are paced rather slowly to build up gradual suspense and allow for the obligatory jumpy and unexpected scares. Although slow-pacing seems to be a tried and tested formula within the paranormal genre, it only serves here to allow the actual ending of Mama to appear as noticeably rushed and very contrived due to its overly-fast execution in comparison to the rest of the film.
The cinematography featured within the film is certainly very artistic and beautifully executed consistently throughout. Moreover, the colour-scale of Mama is also suitably dark and gloomy, allowing any use of actual colour to be an extra shock to the eyes. Although the panning of the camera can be painfully slow at times, it is effective in giving you those cliché jump-scares when something less than appetising pops-up in the frame. A particularly impressive segment of camera-work is featured in a scene where a first-person perspective is solely shown, allowing for a more personalised element to be created for those in the audience who like to get a little more up-close.
Although the CGI used within the film is executed to a high visual level, it does perhaps detract from the visual ‘scare-factor’ of some of the characters and also the special-effects due to how obviously computerised they are. The visual appearance of Mama herself seems to be based on an amalgamation of previous paranormal antagonists from the past, for example; the token dark, long and unkempt hair (à la The Ring) and also backwards-crawling used as a mode of transportation (à la The Exorcist). Although these visual stereotypes are sure to be a crowd-pleaser for the modern horror audience, Mama herself is far from original in her conception and only serves to produce the same old scares.
The sound effects used within Mama are the usual cannon-fodder you would expect in a paranormal horror, however they work well to build-up momentum by increasing in pitch and frequency when indicating that something is indeed about to go down. With original music by Fernando Veláquez (The Orphanage), the soundtrack is effective in placing an unsettling score that runs through the entire film.
The acting featured within the film is generally well-executed, in particular Jessica Chastain, who plays the cliché tough-girl-gone-soft characterisation of Annabel with an actual sense of believability. However, special recognition should be given to Isabelle Nélisse, the child-actor of the character Lilly, who manages to repeatedly pull off an incredibly creepy smile that is arguably more chilling than any of the CGI used throughout.
Although certainly not innovative in terms of plot and scares, Mama does stand stronger than most of the cookie-cutter paranormal horrors of our modern times. Also, despite the conventions of the horror genre restricting the development of some of the more psychological thematic elements of the film, Mama does indeed leave scope for the imagination in the future.
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