Mama (2013 film)
Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:19 pm
This is a horror film about 2 small girls that are found in the middle of the forest after being lost for 5 years. They are obviously quite effected from being completely isolated through an important phase of childhood (it has shades of the idea of "feral children" in it, which is interesting). Once they are found and their uncle and his girlfriend get custody of them, they begin to hear about an entity that foster parented the children in the woods that they simply call "Mama". And then Mama begin to visit the house to see the girls.
Even though this film is rated PG-13, and I typically have very low hopes for PG-13 horror movies, this one is actually pretty disturbing (which is good). It hardly uses any "jump scares", which have become so common in horror movies today. Instead, it relies on what I call "the slow creepy". Basically, you see it coming, and it builds until it makes you squirm in your seat. A commonly seen movie scene that is a good example of "the slow creepy" is the final scene in The Ring (Sumara coming out of the TV). My wife would attest to my yelling "Oh God!" after seeing the way Mama moves (which has an "uncanny valley" effect). So this movie delivers on what I wanted from it, and possibly has reignited my faith in PG-13 horror movies. It has been a long time since I saw a creepy PG-13 horror film, or really almost any rating. It seems like so many are either going for massive gore (can be fun, but isn't scary) or straight torture porn (not into that at all).
Now that I got the good out of the way, there is some negative. This movie is not immune to the typical trap that ghost movies fall into. By the very nature of these ghosts, you can't run from them and expect to get away. The fact that they can magically appear anywhere means that doesn't work. You can't "kill" a ghost either, so a direct confrontation is out. So you are pretty much left with appeasing them in some way, following some kind of ritual, or setting right some wrong to magically make them go away. These often can feel a bit contrived, and sometimes downright stupid. For example, there is something I call the "Demon Library Trope". This is where there always seem to be some unbelievable way to find out what happened that caused the ghost to exist, which gives you an idea of where you need to go and what you need to do to beat it. This movie doesn't escape that, because well...how can you escape it? Either someone has to be found who knows the information, you need to research for the information, etc. (if they didn't, they would know it from the start and the movie would be 15 minutes long). And all of them feel pretty contrived. Go out and actually try to find out what happened to some unexceptional person from the 19th century, and you will be lucky to find a record that they existed, much less how they died and what their affairs were. You will quickly find out just how hard it is to actually find out this kind of stuff in real life and why this trope really bothers me. At least "Mama" tries to make this feel as organic as possible, and does better with it than many others. And it isn't completely predictable, either, which is a plus.
Overall, I would give this about a 7.75 out of 10. The ground it has to move in, it does well and is a trailblazer. But by being a ghost story it dooms itself to certain bad aspects of the genre that are difficult to escape.
Even though this film is rated PG-13, and I typically have very low hopes for PG-13 horror movies, this one is actually pretty disturbing (which is good). It hardly uses any "jump scares", which have become so common in horror movies today. Instead, it relies on what I call "the slow creepy". Basically, you see it coming, and it builds until it makes you squirm in your seat. A commonly seen movie scene that is a good example of "the slow creepy" is the final scene in The Ring (Sumara coming out of the TV). My wife would attest to my yelling "Oh God!" after seeing the way Mama moves (which has an "uncanny valley" effect). So this movie delivers on what I wanted from it, and possibly has reignited my faith in PG-13 horror movies. It has been a long time since I saw a creepy PG-13 horror film, or really almost any rating. It seems like so many are either going for massive gore (can be fun, but isn't scary) or straight torture porn (not into that at all).
Now that I got the good out of the way, there is some negative. This movie is not immune to the typical trap that ghost movies fall into. By the very nature of these ghosts, you can't run from them and expect to get away. The fact that they can magically appear anywhere means that doesn't work. You can't "kill" a ghost either, so a direct confrontation is out. So you are pretty much left with appeasing them in some way, following some kind of ritual, or setting right some wrong to magically make them go away. These often can feel a bit contrived, and sometimes downright stupid. For example, there is something I call the "Demon Library Trope". This is where there always seem to be some unbelievable way to find out what happened that caused the ghost to exist, which gives you an idea of where you need to go and what you need to do to beat it. This movie doesn't escape that, because well...how can you escape it? Either someone has to be found who knows the information, you need to research for the information, etc. (if they didn't, they would know it from the start and the movie would be 15 minutes long). And all of them feel pretty contrived. Go out and actually try to find out what happened to some unexceptional person from the 19th century, and you will be lucky to find a record that they existed, much less how they died and what their affairs were. You will quickly find out just how hard it is to actually find out this kind of stuff in real life and why this trope really bothers me. At least "Mama" tries to make this feel as organic as possible, and does better with it than many others. And it isn't completely predictable, either, which is a plus.
Overall, I would give this about a 7.75 out of 10. The ground it has to move in, it does well and is a trailblazer. But by being a ghost story it dooms itself to certain bad aspects of the genre that are difficult to escape.
