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Subscribe to weekly newsletter » Mama times & tickets / / / January 16, 2013 in theaters by Richard Roeper Fandango Search movie cast & credits more current releases » showtimes and buy Very few horror movies tickets. would last past the second act if the characters in Annabel Jessica Chastain one-minute movie reviews these films were actually Lucas/Jeffrey Nikolaj Coster- about us fans of horror movies. Waldau still playing Victoria Megan Charpentier Some time after the first About the site » Lilly Isabelle Nelisse The Loneliest Planet occurrence of Scary Old Dr. Dreyfuss Daniel Kash Wuthering Heights Site FAQs » Timey Music Wafting 56 Up Through the Vents, after Universal Pictures presents a film Amour Creepy Bugs Fluttering Anna Karenina Contact us » directed by Andy Muschietti. Inside the House and Broken City Written by Neil Cross, and Andy Email the Movie certainly by the time of the Bullet to the Head Answer Man » "Accidental" Fall That and Barbara Muschietti, based on The Central Park Five Sidelines a Key Character the Muschiettis' short. Running Chasing Ice — well, that's when any time: 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 Citadel Consuming Spirits red-blooded, movie-going (for violence and terror, some on sale now Fat Kid Rules the World disturbing images and thematic individual would run out the Gangster Squad front door and never look elements). Generation P back. Happy People: A Year in the Taiga Hitchcock To the credit of director Hyde Park on Hudson Andy Muschietti, his co- The Impossible writing team and a first-rate In the Hive cast, "Mama" succeeds in Printer-friendly » Killing Them Softly scaring the wits out of us E-mail this to a friend » The Last Stand and leaving some lingering, Life of Pi Buy now » deeply creepy images, LUV despite indulging in many of Mama the aforementioned cliches The Matchmaker — and about a half-dozen Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God Movie 43 Zero stars more. (Executive produced by horror master Guillermo del Toro, Neighboring Sounds "Mama" is a feature-length expansion of a three-minute short that New Jerusalem Muschietti made with his sister Barbara.) Oscar shorts: Animation No star rating Oscar shorts: Live action No star rating In addition to at least three or four jump-in-your-seat stingers, we get Parker Buy now » some of the most creatively chilling nightmare sequences in recent Playing for Keeps memory. A stylized dream (which is really a transferred memory) set Quartet in the 19th century, in which we see a crazed young woman creating Red Dawn bloody terror before leaping off a cliff with her newborn, all of it shown Rise of the Guardians from the madwoman's point of view? That's a lot more innovative Scrooge & Marley than anything we're likely to see in yet another film about a plodding Silver Linings Playbook behemoth in a mask chasing after dumb teenagers through the Sister woods. Somewhere Between Stand Up Guys Starlet In the prologue to "Mama," we learn of a shooting at a financial firm Buy now » Struck by Lightning after an economic crash. A distraught executive named Lucas Tales of the Night (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from "Game of Thrones") arrives home, This Must Be the Place quickly collects his two young daughters, Victoria and Lilly, and quickly collects his two young daughters, Victoria and Lilly, and speeds off. They wind up in an abandoned house deep in the forest, Tiger Tail in Blue where Lucas apparently intends to shoot his daughters before he can The Trouble with the Truth kill himself. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Warm Bodies That's not quite how it works out. West of Memphis Zero Dark Thirty Flash forward to five years later. Lucas' brother Jeffrey (also played more current releases » by Coster-Waldau) has never given up hope. His team of searchers Buy now » finally stumbles on to the very abandoned house we saw a century ago in the nightmare. Dad's long gone, but the girls are still there — on dvd covered in mud, making strange noises, crawling on all fours in rapid fashion like wild animals. How could they have survived on their new on dvd own? more new on dvd » The girls are kept in isolation for a few months as Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) records their every move while ostensibly helping with coming on dvd their assimilation. Given that Victoria keeps making cryptic references Buy now » to an unseen "Mama" and Lilly sleeps under the bed, gnaws on fruit, twigs and the occasional bug, and screams whenever anyone tries to more coming on dvd » touch her, the girls hardly seem ready for ice cream, pajamas and bedtime stories, but Jeffrey is determined to give them a normal life. great movies on dvd

So Jeffrey and his rocker-chick lover, Annabel (Jessica Chastain in a black wig and a tattoo sleeve), take the girls to their new rent-free more great movies on dvd » home, provided by the ever-lurking Dr. Dreyfuss, who wants only to keep studying the little ones. Buy now » Let the chills and spills begin. As Dr. Dreyfuss investigates some long-ago murders at a facility just a few miles from the site of that house in the forest, Jeffrey is sidelined by an "accident," leaving the reluctant Annabel in charge of the girls, who are still a long way from being invited to anyone's play group. (Not that we ever see a hint of even one neighbor on the block. Does no one hear all the shaking, rattling and rolling going on in that house where the rocker chick lives with those scary little girls?)

Buy now» For the longest time we don't see much of the ghostly Mama, who apparently has been alternately caring for and terrorizing the girls all these years and has made the trip with them to suburbia. She flashes by the screen, or we see just the top of her head as she zips about the house. Once we do see her, yipes. Thanks to a combination of CGI and a performance by the extremely thin, extremely tall Spanish actor Javier Botet, this is one frightful Mama.

The real mother in the story is Annabel, who slowly sheds her tough- talking, who-gives-a-bleep exterior as her nurturing instincts take Buy now» over. It's worlds away from Chastain's Oscar-nominated turn in "Zero Dark Thirty" and further proof she's one of the finest actors of her generation.

Some elements of "Mama," including the dream sequences, are reminiscent of Japanese horror films. There's also some dark and wicked humor, as when Lilly plays and giggles with an offscreen Mama while Annabel goes about household chores, oblivious to the insanity occurring just around the corner. Coster-Waldau is solid in Buy now» what turns out to be a supporting role, and Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse are terrific as the little girls.

Movies like "Mama" are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's almost always a little plot left over for a sequel.

It's a ride I'd take again.

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