Review of Mama (2013) by Marcosreis — 07 Apr 2021

First off, Mama is in my collection of movies. It's that kind of film you can watch while doing other stuff, like cooking or having a meal by yourself. The premise of the film itself is very interesting: it's a story about the connection between a monster and the kids it adopts as hers. But the quality of this work doesn't go much further than that. The characters are not well writen. I don't seem to know who would relate to the character of Annabel in the general public. I surely didn't. She's an edgy woman who is trying to make a life out a rockband and has some distaste for kids. This character shows it isn't mature enough when in one scene it even get jealous about the kids! There is the boyfriend who ends up in the fridge for most the time, the therapist, who is oddly open to otherworldy explanations and the kids, Victoria and Lilly. Megan Charpentier did a nice job as Victoria, in my opinion. Her character's reaction to the events presented in the story didn't feel forced. Now, Lilly is another story completely. They only got the little girl to be an important emotional mechanism at the end of the movie and paid the little actress to basically smile and laugh, while saying "mama" and acting like a kid raised outside of the civilization. The monster itself, Mama, is just like some other CGI monsters in the horror genre, it doesn't show much, serving as an attempt to raise the tension while spending less money with CGI, probably.

I didn't pay to much attention to the soundtrack, but I can say it isn't a big deal. It uses a Glockenspiel so it can bring the connection to the children theme, but it's just another big orchestral piece made for big movies. What is really the big catch in the sound design is the noise made by Mama. This is really creepy and I think that's what sets the mood for the scary vibe. There are some really bad attempts of jumpscares that weren't really necessary.

Overall, it's a bad movie that's more fantasy than horror. It's just fine for someone who just wants an eerie creature movie.