Netflix has added an under the radar horror flick with passionate fans that lost sleep over its scares.
Described as ‘a masterclass in atmospheric horror’ and ‘a must see’, the film was directed by It filmmaker Andy Muschietti, and stars Jessica Chastain and Game of Thrones actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
Chastain, whose acting is roundly praised in this hidden gem as her ‘best performance yet’, would go on to play the role of Beverly Marsh, working with Muschietti again for the 2019 sequel to the popular clown-centric Stephen King adaptation he directed.
In Mama, which was adapted from Muschietti’s 2008 Argentine short film Mamá, two young girls abandoned in a forest cabin after being kidnapped by their psychotic father are found by their uncle (Coster-Waldau) and brought back to live with him and his girlfriend Annabel (Chastain).
Fostered by a creepy and unknown entity that they fondly call ‘Mama’ during their feral early childhood, Victoria and Lily are also placed in therapy through a welfare clinic.
But Mama eventually follows them to their new suburban home, wreaking further havoc on their new family and bringing nightmares in her wake.
The film was not a massive hit with critics, gaining a 63% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but in the intervening years it has also attracted a cult fanbase ready to defend the movie from its detractors and insisting it ‘does not get the credit it is due’.
While some insisted Mama lacked proper fright, others vehemently disagreed with Letterboxd fans insisting they’d ‘never seen anything scarier’.
Have you seen Mama? What did you think?
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I really enjoyed it, it was definitely scary!
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I wasn’t impressed, it didn’t terrify me
‘This was so scary bro I don’t ever want to watch this again,’ added Layla.
On Rotten Tomatoes there was further agreement, with David C posting: ‘No other film before or after this has caused me to lose sleep, but I lost two nights over this. Is that not what every horror strives for in its very essence? For me personally I cannot give less than 5 stars.’
Another viewer, who claimed to have seen ‘many, many horror films in my lifetime’ shared that they had ‘rarely (if ever) seen one that has touched me so deeply, rewarded me so profoundly, and at the same time managed to scare the everliving s**t out of me so many times in one night’.
‘Mama has left me shaken to my very core, in so many good ways,’ they added.
‘I don’t want to write too much about this movie’s plot. I will say – don’t watch a late showing… you won’t want to go home in the dark after watching this one,’ teased another fan on IMDb.
They also warned viewers to ‘pay close attention to everything that’s going on in the foreground – and especially the background – in every moment of every scene of this film’.
Mama is streaming on Netflix in the UK now.
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