Mama 2013

 Released Year: 2013

Directed by Andrés Muschietti

Casted by:

Jessica Chastain as Annabel

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas Desange / Jeffrey Desange

Megan Charpentier as Victoria Desange

Isabelle Nélisse as Lilly

Story: 

Distraught after losing his fortune in the 2008 financial crisis, stockbroker Jeffrey D'Asange kills his business partners and estranged wife before taking his children, three-year-old Victoria and one-year-old Lilly, away from home. Driving dangerously fast on a snowy road, Jeffrey loses control and the car slides off and down the mountain, crashing into the woods. Surviving, he takes the children into an abandoned cabin and builds a fire, even though Victoria is resistant, thinking she saw someone inside. Planning to kill his daughters and commit suicide, he holds a gun to Victoria's head, but a shadowy figure suddenly drags him away, suspending him in the air and strangling him with his tie. Victoria turns around, but because her father had taken her glasses away, she did not see the gun and could not see what was happening. The girls, huddled by the fireside, are tossed a cherry by the mysterious figure.

Five years later a rescue party, sponsored by Jeffrey's identical twin brother Lucas, finds Victoria and Lilly alive, but in a feral state after years of isolation. The girls are put in a welfare clinic under the psychiatric care of Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss. They make reference to "Mama", a maternal protector figure. When Lucas tries to communicate with the girls, they are initially hostile, but Victoria recognizes him after he gives her a pair of glasses and she can see him properly. Dreyfuss agrees to support Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel's custody claim against the girls' maternal great-aunt Jean Podolski. In exchange, they must move into a clinic-owned house and grant Dreyfuss continued contact with Victoria and Lilly for research purposes. When Victoria and Lilly arrive at the house, Victoria acclimates quickly to domestic life at the house while Lilly initially retains much of her feralness, not being used to being around people like Lucas or Annabel.

While in bed with Lucas, Annabel is startled by the appearance of a shadowy, monstrous figure in their doorway. While investigating, Lucas is attacked by "Mama" and is put into a coma after falling down the stairs. Annabel, who has no relation to the girls and is uncomfortable being around them, finds herself left alone to care for them. Although Annabel makes progress with Victoria, she finds Lilly hostile. Alarmed by nightmares of a woman and Victoria's warning about Mama's jealousy, Annabel asks Dreyfuss to investigate. He initially thought "Mama" to be an imaginary alter-ego of Victoria, believing she had to take on a parental role to take care of Lilly for five years; however, his research corroborates Victoria's story that Mama is an aggrieved mother and brings to light the story of Edith Brennan, a mental asylum patient in the 1800s.

Dreyfuss recovers a box from a government warehouse containing a baby's remains, and first encounters Mama when interviewing Victoria again. Annabel has a nightmare revealing Mama's past: when Edith Brennan ("Mama") was sent to St. Gertrude's Asylum, her child was taken from her and given to nuns. She escaped the asylum, stabbed a nun, and took her baby back. Fleeing her pursuers, Brennan jumped off a cliff, but before hitting the water below, Brennan and the child made impact with a large branch (accounting for her misshapen head) and her unconscious body fell into the water and she drowned; Edith's child died on impact with the branch, but the baby's blanket-wrapped corpse snagged on the branch and did not fall with Brennan into the water below. Annabel realizes that Mama still doesn't realize her child died from hitting the tree; Mama unsuccessfully searched the woods for more than a century and had taken on Victoria and Lilly as substitutes.

Lucas regains consciousness after a disturbing vision of his dead brother, Jeffrey, tells him to go to the cabin in the woods and save his daughters. Annabel and the girls are visited by Jean, who is alarmed by the girls' bruises from their still-animalistic behavior, and tries to get Annabel investigated for child abuse. Victoria's growing closeness to Annabel makes her less willing to play with Mama, unlike Lilly.

Dreyfuss visits the cabin at night to investigate and attempts to communicate with Mama. After his flashlight stops working, he uses the flash of his camera as a light but is suddenly attacked and killed by Mama. Finding Dreyfuss missing, Annabel steals the girls' case files from his office. She learns that Brennan and Mama are the same person, while Lucas leaves the hospital to search for the cabin. Shortly after making a breakthrough with Lilly after finding her outside in the cold, Annabel and the girls are attacked by a jealous Mama, who kills Jean and uses her body to spirit the children away in Jean's automobile. Annabel regains consciousness and hurries off to save the children. She meets Lucas along the way, and he joins her to find the children.

The couple spot the children on the same cliff where Brennan leaped with her child to their deaths over a century earlier. Mama is preparing to re-enact her fall, taking Victoria and Lilly with her. When Annabel offers Mama the remains of her child, Mama takes the skeleton, and transforms into her human form, sobbing at the baby's death. However, when Lilly (who, being younger than her sister, remembers only Mama as her original parent) calls out for her, Mama reverts to her more monstrous form, throws the baby's remains off the cliff, and takes the girls again, nearly killing Annabel and Lucas (but refraining from doing so mainly because Victoria clearly shows she cares about them). Lucas is knocked unconscious, but Annabel clings to Victoria, who asks to stay with Annabel instead of leaving with Mama after Annabel's struggle for Victoria to stay, despite Lilly's pleas to come with her. After a tearful farewell, Mama and Lilly float off the cliff and fall, turning into a shower of moths when they hit the branch that originally killed Brennan and her baby. The film ends with Annabel and Lucas embracing Victoria, and Victoria noticing a moth with bright blue wings (as opposed to Mama's moths, which were all dark) landing on her hand, indicating that Lilly is still with her in some form.

L² Scored: 5.5/10

L² Comment: 

This was actually based on the director, Andres' 2008 Argentine short film Mama. I did not watch that, so no comment on it. For this film, it is still ok on the storyline, scary part is quite ok, but something kinda missing, but i m not sure what it is... overall, i'm ok with it but won't watch it again in a short period of time