Mama Blu-Ray Review

Director: Andy Muschietti

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Running Time: 96 Mins

Certificate: 15

Extras: Original Short Film; Deleted Scenes; Visual Effects Featurette; Making-Of Featurette; Director & Writer Commentary

It’s always problematic attempting to turn a short film into a full feature length movie. For every decent BOOGIE NIGHTS or NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, there’s plenty of failed features that started off as short films and which probably should have stayed that way. So where does MAMA, the debut feature from Andy and Barbara Muschietti, sit on the scales between good and bad short-to-feature adaptions? Upon watching the film, its fair to say it lies somewhere in the middle.

Telling the story of a couple terrorized by the violent ghost of a long-dead mother when they take in two feral children, MAMA initially grabs the viewers attention with its solid yet haunting visuals. The opening ten minutes of this creepy and dark fairy tale are exquisite, the Director clearly revelling in having a bigger budget and better resources to play with, and yet sensibally choosing to keep things minimal in order to really give the scenes a true sense of horror. Lead cast-members Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are each brilliant, especially Coster-Waldau, whose double turn as two twin brothers is nothing short of excellent. And the child actors who take up a fair amount of screen time are easily some of the best child actors this reviewer has ever seen in a film to date.

Sadly though, after a brilliantly tense and creepy opening, the film does take a bit of a turn in terms of quality and originality, clearly unsure as to where to take the story beyond the small-scale set-up of the original short. The film meanders on and on, occasionally touching on one or two genre clichés before reaching a rather dull and uninspiring climax. It’s a shame, as the opening promised so much and yet the rest of the film delivers so little.

Watching MAMA, it’s easy to see and understand what producer Guillermo Del Toro saw in Muschietti’s original short. The film is chock full of inspired directorial flourishes which do wonders for what is sadly a rather uninspiring story. Some great performances and the excellent aforementioned direction aside, MAMA is a bit too long and a bit too average to sustain your interest for its entire running time.

Our advice: save yourself some time and stick with the short film.

Extras: The original short film, a couple of featurettes, some deleted scenes, and a commentary from Andy & Barbara Muschietti, though none of this was available to view beforehand.

Mama is available to own on DVD & Blu-Ray from the 17^th June from Universal Pictures.