"Mama" Provides Chilling Enviroments But Not Enough Story to Back It Up

Mama is a film that's more interesting than entertaining. For a horror movie, it's got the creepy, evocative, atmospheric visuals down cold but its storytelling is a bit more loose and uneven. There are some wonderfully textured and moody sequences that are equal parts unsettling and imaginative. The story though is less well put together and things feel disconnected from one scene to the next.

Two girls are taken to an abandoned cabin where their father (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is quickly picked off by some unknown entity. Five years later, the father's twin brother Chris (also Coster-Waldau) continues to spearhead a search to find his nieces, but when discovered they are found to be feral, as well as obsessed with a person they call "Mama". Chris adopts them but he and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) find it difficult to get through to the girls.

Twists and turns occur as they must in the horror genre. Things that go bump in the night do some bumping. Things pop up just at the corner of the frame to startle and frighten us. There are visuals that drip with eerie terror and darkness. Its very by the books, even as the mid stretch features an atypical exploration of mother-daughter relationships that is the most interesting, engaging, and emotionally rich part of the film.

Annabel is not on board with taking in the girls. This is put at odds when Chris is injured and incapacitated in the hospital. Soon Annabel is forced to bond with the two girls that she wanted nothing to do with before. Here the film takes advantage of Chastain's always great acting to really make the give and take between the girls and Annabel feel the emotional weight intended.

The film falls apart a bit at the end. It collapses under a muddled inability to determine how the film should go out (In overextended and baffling fashion apparently it decides). But before that there's enough well-executed horror setpieces and ambiance to carry Mama. It's good to see a horror movie attempt to scare us less through blood and carnage and more with straightforward storytelling; however Mama still could have been better executed.

Grade: C+