Reviews for this film from our members:
- Beth Accomando @ KPBS Cinema Junkie
- Excerpt: Mama is not a gross out horror film and it’s not trying to terrorize you. But it does deliver an elegantly creepy ghost tale that might subtly insinuate itself into your nightmares.
- Marina Antunes @ Quiet Earth
- Luke Bonanno @ DVDizzy.com
- Excerpt: And even if you aren’t still onboard with Mama by its end when it resolves its plot with big, dark sequences and visual effects, you probably have been for the eighty minutes or so leading up to it, intrigued by its material and not certain where the movie is heading.
- Christopher Bourne @ Twitch
- Excerpt: In genre terms, this is very old wine in a slightly new-ish bottle. The utter predictability of it all prevents “Mama” from being much more than a rather routine horror film.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Feels like people who could be making a much better film spending too much time playing in the same old sandbox as everybody else.
- Enrique Buchichio @ Cartelera.com.uy [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Como relato terrorífico, es mucho más efectivo el corto original del propio director Andrés Muschietti, en el cual se basa esta película.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: Had “Mama” come out last October when it was originally scheduled to go head-to-head with “Sinister,” it would have been a mistake. As it is, it’s a perfectly acceptable slice of January horror.
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …an interesting haunting angle and a before-she-was-famous Jessica Chastain does her bit to raise up the material, but the filmmakers seriously lose their grip with a protracted finale that overexposes its titular monster
- [New – 9/19] | Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Muschietti es muy bueno creando momentos y explotándolos y creando atmósferas, y todos los ataques del fantasma son magníficos. Pero la historia es terrible.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: [T]he screenplay runs around in circles …
- Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: Jessica Chastain does emo-goth and Mama begs the question about who should be a mother.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Spooky, grotesquely stylish, supernatural – with a silly, contrived conclusion
- Mark Harris @ About.com
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Ultimately more sad than scary in ways that are about the power, for both good and ill, of parental love…
- Danny King @ The King Bulletin
- Excerpt: Muschietti has clearly relied on contrivance in fashioning his needlessly intricate narrative, but his sense of craft is exceptional, and the film has no less than three or four utterly brilliant sequences.
- Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
- Glenn Lovell @ CinemaDope.com
- Piers Marchant @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Brent McKnight @ Beyond Hollywood
- Excerpt: Mama features a handful of moderate jump scares, but lackluster digital effects and an artificial, and underdeveloped, story keep the film mired in mediocrity.
- Mark Pfeiffer @ Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Mama is an exceptionally well-crafted piece of work, nicely shot (by Antonio Riestra) and scripted (by Neil Cross and the director, from his 2008 short film) and especially well-acted, but it has just one problem: it isn’t very scary.
- Tiago Ramos @ Split Screen [Portuguese]
- Jamie S. Rich @ DVD Talk
- Excerpt: When a movie makes as little sense as “Mama,” you almost have to step back and wonder if the filmmakers made a special effort to keep everything so jumbled and disconnected.
- Marcio Sallem @ Em Cartaz [Portuguese]
- Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Guillermo del Toro — the director of such minor masterpieces as “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” — weakens his sphere of influence by producing a sorely underdeveloped horror movie that manufactures scares from the crudest of tropes.
- Frank Swietek @ One Guy’s Opinion
- Excerpt: Though it’s visually elegant…it’s narratively thin and repetitive.
- Ed Whitfieldq @ The Ooh Tray
- Andrew Wyatt @ Gateway Cinephiles
- Excerpt: Narrative problems abound in Mama, which is overflowing with convenient turns, frustrating cul-de-sacs, and a laughable understanding of how social service agencies function.
