Mama (2013)
Directed by Andy Muschietti
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 parents were killed. 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.
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44 films that influenced Mama
What critics say influenced Mama
Mama begins with a crazed father failing in his attempt to murder his two children before turning the gun on himself (an homage to the opening of Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout?).
One irresistible parallel is not to Mr. del Toro's work but to François Truffaut's transcendently beautiful "The Wild Child," in which Truffaut himself played Dr. Itard, the physician who undertook to civilize a feral boy discovered in the forests of 18th-century France.
Companion viewing: "Devil's Backbone," "The Orphanage," "Sinister," "The Wild Child"…
Del Toro's influence here is only glancingly apparent (there's a fleeting echo of Pan's Labyrinth ).
Del Toro, whose work includes the eerily enchanting “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the numerous “Hellboy” movies, has inspired many of today younger horror directors with his distinctive creepy, earthy style.
You can feel the imprint of the film’s guardian angel, executive producer Guillermo del Toro, but his touch is too light to help “Mama” cast the mystical, magical spell of his Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
Producer Guillermo del Toro (who directed the evocative "Pan's Labyrinth") should have let more things stay ambiguous and encouraged first-time director Muschietti to concentrate on the mood.
Guillermo del Toro — the director of such minor masterpieces as “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” — weakens his sphere of influence by producing a sorely underdeveloped horror movie that manufactures scares from the crudest of tropes.
"Mama" was produced by Guillermo del Toro, the masterly Mexican director of such action fantasies as "Mimic," "Hellboy" and the memorably lyrical "Pan's Labyrinth."
3. Is this an oblique reference to the criminally stupid Silent Fall , starring Richard Dreyfuss as a therapist who takes in a mute orphan and his devious Lolita of a sister (Liv Tyler)?
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It's reminiscent of how James Cameron used the Ripley/Newt interaction in Aliens - a deeply human subplot that seeks to enrich a traditional genre entry.
This relentlessly spooky but almost gore-free movie ends with a woman-on-ghost confrontation at the precipice of a steep cliff that’s as stark an allegory for the power of maternal love as Sigourney Weaver’s climactic battle with the mother-monster in Aliens .
Though some silliness pulls it down, Mama is reminiscent of both The Orphanage (another project del Toro shepherded) and The Ring , with strong emotional logic underpinning the scares.
Mama is the lastest horror movie to carry the prestigious stamp of being "presented by Guillermo del Toro" - following in the tradition of such films as The Orphanage (2007) and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010).
It also rings somewhat familiar to another del Toro-produced work, Juan Antonio Bayona’s 2007 thriller The Orphanage, where an invisible friend takes a crucial role.
It’s more like Juan Antonio Bayona’s 2007 thriller The Orphanage, also produced by Mr. del Toro.
This penchant for guiding up-and-coming talent into the business via horror projects arguably produced its most rewarding results back in 2007, when del Toro helped get JA Bayona’s excellent The Orphanage onto the screen; after that, Bayona went on to give us last year’s The Impossible .
Films like The Orphanage, Julia’s Eyes, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, and even Splice (to a point) seem to hearken back to an earlier era in which scares were classier, plots were simpler, and audiences were a lot more open to bumps in the night and playful chills.
John Dies at the End is joyously heterodox in its method, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mélange of sci-fi, black comedy, and action, with disquieting body-horror sight gags that at times recall David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch .
The responsibility is far more than she bargained for, but one she is willing to fight for when the mysterious presence Victoria and Lily call "Mama" turns out not to be imaginary after all.Intentionally or not, "Mama" takes worthwhile inspiration from 2002's " The Ring ," 2003's " Darkness Falls ," and 2011's " Don't Be Afraid of the Dark " while cooking up its own gothic standalone fable.
Mama, directed by Andrés Muschietti and produced by del Toro, is a case in point: its conclusion conveniently gets rid of the member of the family who can’t be made to fit in – just like the del Toro-produced Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark effected some sort of reconciliation between two relatives by sacrificing the extra person in the family.
Mama is the lastest horror movie to carry the prestigious stamp of being "presented by Guillermo del Toro" - following in the tradition of such films as The Orphanage (2007) and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010).
If “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” was any indicator, Guillermo del Toro’s influence on “Mama” was sure to be a positive angle to the horror tale.
In terms of genre projects that del Toro has produced throughout the years under other filmmakers, Mama falls in somewhere between the highly superior ghost tale The Orphanage and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which I felt were rather underwhelming efforts.
(The short doesn’t spoil anything in the movie; it’s little more than a “Boo!”) Del Toro took them in, supported their work, and provided guidance, technical support, and financing, as he has with other first-time filmmakers in recent years—Carlos Cuarón with Rudo Y Cursi , Troy Nixey with Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark , Juan Antonio Bayona with The Orphanage .
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Del Toro and Muschietti at their best channel Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” and Jack Clayton’s arty adaptation “The Innocents.”
It also delivers – at least most of the time – with an extremely creepy ghost reminiscent of the chilling title character from “The Grudge.”
It lacks the requisite blood, gore and severed limbs for hard-core horror fans, but "Mama" does offer the shadowy suggestiveness of some of the better Japanese horror flicks such as "The Grudge."
The film’s prologue and Mama’s origin creates something that’s more than just a haunted house movie although physically, “Mama” falls into the Japanese ghost territory of “The Ring,” “The Grudge,” et al. – long scraggly hair and movement as if every bone in her stick-thin body has been shattered and reassembled.
Some scenes reminded me of “The Grudge” (the japanese version) like the ghost’s floating frizzed out hair..and the ghost appearing from just the Hair…or from a rotting blot on a wall.
Instead, the film — which fittingly began life as a short — turns into a rote, protracted take on the imitation J-horror of The Ring and The Grudge.