Review of Goodnight Mommy (2015) by Michael S — 22 Sep 2015

It seemed like this film was getting a lot of positive word of mouth and the trailer was enough to convince many it was worth a watch. Unfortunately, having just finished I can't say I feel particularly impressed by what I just saw.

The film looks great. It has some fantastic shots and overall there were plenty of times were I felt uneasy. The problem is that uneasiness wasn't because of anything particularly suspenseful. I was uneasy because it was graphic and horrific in the sense that it was visually disturbing, but I wouldn't call anything that happened frightening.

My biggest criticism of the film is that I don't know if there was supposed to be a twist or if the filmmakers weren't actually going for that. If they were they failed. If you don't know what's going on after the first 15 minutes then you've been out of the loop for a long time or you're just trying to deny the obvious to trick yourself into being surprised. It feels like there's supposed to be a big reveal in the final scene, but I can't imagine that anyone makes it that far without having figured the whole story out ages ago. If you want there to be a twist ending then do something, anything to throw viewers off the trail especially if the twist is something we've seen before.

It's really just that their "hints" are so far beyond hints that it ruins any chance to fool the audience. The film presents itself as a complex suspense where anything could happen at anytime and the viewer is constantly on edge, but what I just watched was a pretty movie that shows its cards immediately and ends up rather unpleasant to watch for the same reason I might look away from SAW XXVI. That reason has nothing to do with being afraid.