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A moody, emotionally driven ghost story with a strong central hook and a few striking images, but it leans on familiar horror beats and a finale that divides viewers. The family drama and the tragic angle give it more heart than many mainstream hauntings, even if the scares are uneven.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 1h 40m
Director: Andy Muschietti
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier
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.
Andy Muschietti
Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier
A moody, emotionally driven ghost story with a strong central hook and a few striking images, but it leans on familiar horror beats and a finale that divides viewers. The family drama and the tragic angle give it more heart than many mainstream hauntings, even if the scares are uneven.
Mama works best as a melancholy ghost story about attachment, grief, and the damage done when children are left to raise themselves in the dark. The premise is immediately unsettling, and the film gets a lot of mileage out of the contrast between feral childhood and uneasy domestic rescue. Jessica Chastain gives the movie a needed pulse, grounding the more fantastical material in a believable, messy kind of care.
The atmosphere is strong, with a few memorable scares and a visual style that knows how to turn a nursery, a hallway, or a shadowy corner into a threat. It also has a genuine emotional hook: the haunting is not just about fear, but about possession, dependency, and the pain of separation. That gives the movie more texture than its familiar setup might suggest.
Still, the film’s weaknesses are hard to ignore. It often feels like it is moving through recognizable horror machinery, and the ending is likely to leave some viewers cold or unconvinced. If you’re in the mood for a haunted-house story with a tragic streak and a strong central performance, it’s worth a look; if you want something sharper or more original, it may feel thin.
Lucy (3★) · 1778 likes
GOTH JESSICA CHASTAIN
Ellie ✨ (2★) · 1577 likes
always interesting to see how far into a horror movie i get before having the thought "i'd just kill myself." made it to 38 minutes this time
DirkH (1★) · 677 likes
I apologize in advance for the swearing and caps lock typing but fuck this film and modern mainstream horror. Mama represents everything that's wrong with the genre these days. It is bland, uninspired and has no fucking soul whatsoever, which is kind of ironic as it is a ghost story. Why? Why do ghost stories always have to be played out THE EXACT SAME FUCKING WAY IN EVERY FUCKING FILM???!!!!??? Creepy kids? Check. Creepy house? Check. Kinda sorta expert meddling… more
briony (2.5★) · 673 likes
lesbian custody battles are nasty
kyle 𖹭ৎ (2★) · 641 likes
girl, a mama behind you 💜
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grief, attachment, haunting, found family, motherhood, childhood trauma, possession, domestic horror
supernatural horror, ghost story, gothic atmosphere, haunted children, family drama, melancholic tone, creature feature, domestic dread, tragic romance, mainstream horror