I am doing by best to give Guillermo Del Toro a chance. I know Pan's Labyrinth and Shape of Water were award winning movies. He clearly has a certain style. This movie went from average horror to strange dumb dramatic fantasy really quick. So I've never seen Pan's. I maybe never will. It is just a little bit too much for me. It's just too strange I can't get behind it. I watched Shape of Water, which was honestly equally as strange probably. A woman and a fish falling in love. You know, everyday things. I mean, I'm not too worried about it. There are a lot things in the world I don't and will probably never understand. But I'm here to entertain any attempt at a horror movie.
So I don't exactly remember when this movie came out, but as I was reading I see that it was the same year as The Conjuring. Which in my opinion was an ultimately better movie. I went to the theater with my Dad to see it (we like to watch horror movies together okay - it's our thing.) It was also a year after Sinister, another decent movie in my opinion. So I can't help but find too many similarities between all of these movies. I guess that was the thing at the time period. They all follow a pretty close plot and even have similar jump scares and imagery. This movie started off so boring. Like I honestly watched about 20 minutes, went to sleep for 6 hours, and came back to it. And paused it multiple times. I understand that movies want to build up to a good ending but Christ, there's got to be something more interesting to add in within the first boring ass hour of a movie like this. The beginning starts with the father of these two young girls running out of his house. They ask where their mom is, and he says she doesn't feel well. It's not really made clear what that means. Is that important? He is like RUNNING out of the house. It's the middle of winter and he is speeding through winding roads on the side of a mountain like spinning out in his vehicle. I literally had to look up what happened because it doesn't even say in the movie. I guess he murders his wife and his colleagues? Why? What does this have to do with anything? So I guess he's running from the cops. Spins out and flies down the side of the mountain. It's the middle of winter, it's probably freezing out and they are walking through the forest for God knows how long until they reach this cabin. Of course, they just walk right in and make themselves comfortable. Who cares if it's someone's home? It's our home now. The father is obviously fuckin' nuts because he plans to shoot his kids in the head and maybe himself after? Until this shadow comes out of the wall in the cabin and swipes the Dad and puts him... somewhere? Swipe. Gone-zo. In comes Logan, the Dad's brother. Who very well could be the same fucking actor for all I know. I'm like, this dude is the same fucking actor, this is no brother. Low and behold I look it up and yes, of course they couldn't even hire a different actor to play the brother. Okay. That's fine. So the brother has hired these random two old guys to search the forest for the girls and his brother for five years. Not the police even, just these random old dudes. Who eventually of course find them. Where would our story be without the girls? What would Mama mean? Also - throughout this review I know I'm going to have to continue referring to this character as Mama and it's just the dumbest name for a demon ever. Like Mama! Mama! Over and over. Ugh.
So the police and social services get a hold of the girls, and they're all fucked up cause they've been living in a cabin in the middle of the forest for five years. Who has fed them? How did they shower? How did they do anything? I don't know...demon Mama must be a quality parent. For sure. Will the girls stay in the child care system? Will the uncle take them? The uncle who makes art for a living and lives with his girlfriend who plays bass in a band. They're both shit broke. But of course for plot sake - they get custody of the girls. Even over their Aunt who is seemingly more capable of being a parent. They also get possession of the murderous brother's old house. These are all realistic facts this would all truly happen in real life. The girls are obviously like extremely emotionally damaged. The young one can't even talk and all she does is crawl around like a little demon child and sleep under the bed. The other one can talk, but doesn't say anything hardly ever. They resist to ever talking about who took care of them but of course we know it was the weird demon lady who lives in the wall. I have to note as well that the figure they eventually reveal looks almost exactly like the lady who they find on top of the closet in The Conjuring. I mean, the movies came out at the same time so it's not entirely possible that they stole the idea from one or the other but it's a strange co-incidence. There is one particularly funny scene where one of the girl looks at her uncle and says, "Daddy?" I literally laughed out loud. No wonder you'd say that, it's the same fucking actor. "Nope I'm your uncle Logan." So this Mama figure is continually in the house making her appearances around the girls because she obviously claimed them as her own children. She gets jealous whenever Annabel (Logan's girlfriend) tries to show any kind of motherly affection. Mama comes out of walls or slams doors and all the usual things. I don't mean to completely shit all over the movie. I did jump quite a few times. The Mama figure is a lot scarier when you can't completely see her. Her flowy hair just creeping around walls is such a 'del Toro' style effect and I'm glad it's included a lot. It's visually appealing. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if my middle-Alberta internet wasn't cutting out every half an hour. Or if I didn't just watch it on my laptop. I try my best. I turn it up, I turn the lights off. You know, you gotta try. The social worker returns to continue talking to the girls to try to get more of an understanding of what they've been through. Somehow he ends up in this deep dark library of mysterious off record files with some random ass lady who is all, "Do YoU bElIeVe In GhOSts?!?" Eye roll. So she gives him all this information about this crazy lady that is of course exactly who they're looking for. They don't really reveal a lot of it right away. As I said this movie is extremely slow. But I guess the story is that this woman, Edith Brennan, escaped from a mental hospital and stole a baby from an orphanage. Was it her baby? They really do not say. But after more reading, I guess it is her baby. Within this mysterious box of files, there is a baby corpse in this fucking box. A BABY CORPSE. Like skull and bones. Like is that we are are doing these days? Just keeping the remains of infants in weird warehouses full of useless files? Sure. So Edith is this Mama character who died like 200 years ago, and she is seeking revenge for losing her child by obviously claiming these two girls who came to her house. And now that they're gone from her creepy cabin, she's trying to kidnap them again from Annabel and Logan. 200 years ago, Edith ended up being chased by police and ends up at a cliff and jumps off into the water, but her baby never made it to the water. Which means the baby probably hit the cliff and was toast. But she ends up searching the forest for the baby forever until you know she probably died of old age or whatever.
So they're all having visions about this cabin and know the only way, of course, that they will stop being tormented is if they go back and confront Mama or Edith or whatever sounds less stupid to say. Annabel finally sees Mama, which is pretty spooky if that kind of ghost/ghoul/witchy thing scares you visually. And it lasts for SO long, like they just don't stop showing Mama. It gets less scary the more you look at her. Like it's still creepy and good effects but like I feel like the longer you show the demon, it just looses it's spook factor. So now that we're all not afraid of her anymore, she kidnaps the girls and drags them back to the stupid ass cabin. And Annabel knows just where to go. Annabel meets Logan who also decided to run to the cabin to find the girls.
Mama drags the girls to the same cliff to relieve her stupid cliff jump scene. This scene goes on for what feels like an hour. I think I checked the time clock and there was only about 10 minutes left in the movie but Christ it felt like an eternity. The stupid ghost trying to drag the girls off the cliff. She just floats above the water for like SO LONG. Just floating and staring. So many "NOOOOO!"s. Annabel even brought back the fucking baby corpse to appease this stupid creature. And Mama cradles it in her arms, until Lily (the youngest girl) is like "Mama!". What does she do? The creature fucking tosses her own baby corpse off the fucking cliff after crying over it and cradling it for so long. Fuck that baby I guess. She wants Lily and Victoria now. Annabel refuses to let go of Victoria. But the dumb witch gets a hold of Lily. Lily is all happy because she was pretty fucked up anyway and I guess that's the only parental figure she recognizes. Also like, how are these girls not terrified of this creature? She's terrifying. Somehow after some weird non-verbal exchange Logan and Annabel LET THE WITCH TAKE THE LITTLE GIRL. Like they don't even try to get her back. They just let her have her. What?! Why!? Talk about child neglect. Victoria stays with Logan and Annabel while Mama spins into some crazy bundle of evil and turns into bats and moths. Then all of a sudden Lily is a butterfly and lands on Victoria's shoulder. AND THAT'S THE MOVIE.
I didn't mean to just spring this ending on you with no warning. But it's actually just like so stupid I can't even deal with it. They just let a 5 year old kid basically die, without hardly trying to save her. And then I don't know somehow demon-ass Mama is chill with everything finally and disappears. It's stupid. It's a stupid ass ending and it took SO LONG and was SO DRAMATIC. Even like cheesy ass orchestral music for so long. It sounds like the end of Beauty and the Beast.
I don't know what else to say. I'm a hater I guess. There was like 20 minutes of the movie I enjoyed. How did Jessica Chastain get looped into this nonsense? I wouldn't even know half of what was going on if I didn't have to read a plot summary after watching this. Uhh. Just watch The Conjuring instead.
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