Mama

Guillermo del Toro executive-produced this debut feature from Spanish director Andrés Muschietti about the discovery of two little girls who were kidnapped by their father when quite young and left alone for five years in a cabin. The film starts out promisingly:  the girls’ uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldue) and his reluctant punk-rocker girlfriend (the always excellent Jessica Chastain proving that she can play 22 as well as 42) adopt the girls while an unscrupulous doctor studies them. The first half plays like a great “scary-kid” movie (the young actresses who play the girls are terrific) that becomes a haunted-house movie when the demented spirit who took care of the girls during their five years in the woods returns and becomes jealous of their new “mother”. However, like most modern horror movies, the fun scares and spooky mystery become less credible as soon as CGI takes over. There are also some major logic problems in the story that could have easily been addressed if more care had been taken in adapting this celebrated short film into a feature.