Tag Archives: Jump Scares

Two on a Guillotine Review

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It’s time to look at another old film from back in the day. This one is probably one of the oldest haunted house type films that I’ve seen not counting some comedies like the Abbot and Costello films. (If those were older) It’s not a particularly good one though as the film makes a few mistakes and I can’t say that Val makes for a very good main hero. He trolls Cassie quite a lot to the point where you sympathize with her a whole lot more than you do him. Val may have turned out to be a good guy, but from her point of view there’s no reason to trust him. Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself a little so lets talk about the plot.

A magician known as John used to be quite popular until one of his tricks went wrong and his wife ended up dying. John went crazy with grief and died as well. After everyone attended his burial and saw his body close up, his will was read and Cassie got his riches. The only condition was she had to stay in his manor for 7 days in a row without leaving. In his will he promised that his ghost would show up to meet her. Reporter Val decides to get the inside scoop and pretends to be a random guy looking to be friendly so Cassie will let him in. The two hit it off and now Val just needs to figure out what John’s trick is. After all, he doesn’t believe in ghosts!

The house does have a lot of tricks and such that keep on scaring Cassie out of her mind. Honestly she is way too jumpy all things considered. If she was by herself then I could understand that, but with Val she shouldn’t be so exaggerated the whole time. When you’re with someone you’re never quite as scared as when you’re by yourself. Val isn’t the most understanding guy either so he keeps trying to scare her as well. You’d think that since he wants to stay as her guest he would be a bit more tactful but that isn’t the case at all. Honestly during the entire film he just doesn’t act the way you would expect him to. I guess that’s because in part during this experience he started to grow attached to her and stopped being a reporter which caused his brain to melt. Only possible explanation I guess.

In case you haven’t guessed this I was not a big fan of Val at all. He was just really annoying the whole time. As I mentioned he kept on trolling Cassie for no real reason. Even at the end once he comes in to try and help her fight off the magician he fails quite epicly. Not only should he absolutely be winning this fight, but he should be well aware of where the switch for triggering the axe is. He literally triggers it himself which by all accounts should have destroyed Cassie. Fortunately she lived, but he came too close to destroying her himself and as far as I’m concerned she should tell him to pack his bags at that point.

Cassie isn’t all that good either though. As I mentioned she gets scared way too easily. Furthermore, I think she is way too easy on Val. Even after she finds out he has been lying to her she quickly takes him back since Cassie gets scared again. I suppose using him for that purpose is fine, but afterwards she should quickly distance herself again. Val just doesn’t seem like a great guy. Cassie also doesn’t put up any kind of struggle at the end of the film and just faints again so that didn’t help her either. The house maid had more grit and she was only around for 2-3 minutes. Dolly is one of the red herrings in the film who Val is suspicious of, but ultimately doesn’t do much in the film. She does try to hold Val back when the villain shows up so at least she is good for aiding the villain. Of course the characters don’t acknowledge that since they aren’t brave enough and Val should have just shoved her aside if he was really trying to protect Cassie.

All right, it’s spoiler time folks. Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know the ending. It involves the main villain. It’s a big plot hole that I can’t overlook since the film couldn’t be bothered to address it. As I mentioned earlier, the magician had a very public funeral where everyone saw the body. In that case, how can he have avoided his fate? At the end of the film we learn that he was alive the whole time and merely faked his death. He was living upstairs the whole time and must have brought a lot of snacks with him. I’m cool with him being able to hide for a few days because the mansion is big and he just locked the door he was in. The problem is that someone had to have noticed that the body was fake. This isn’t a CIA film where the villains have access to a bunch of duplicate bodies and this magician is hardly a criminal mastermind. I just don’t believe that he had another body at the ready to fool everyone. At best he murdered someone else, but then why didn’t the town know that someone was missing? The whole thing was just rather unbelievable and the writers clearly just wanted the twist without thinking about it too much.

Overall, I can’t say that this film was all that good. It’s not a terrible film or anything, but at the same time there isn’t much to keep you engaged either. As I mentioned it is very by the books without anything particularly strong to make it stand out. It’s just another film that will fade in your memory eventually. It probably would have gone a little better had the cast been better. At least I can say that the writing wasn’t bad. I mean, the twist was bad and that is a part of the writing, but the script was solid. I also liked the reporter’s friend who quickly showed up just to spoil his cover. The guy was so oblivious that he stole the movie in one scene.

Overall 4/10

Rosemary’s Baby Review

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Uh oh, it’s time to take a look at Rosemary’s Baby. I can safely say that this is one of those films that I knew would be terrible from the start. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to know that a film with this title rarely goes over well. Especially considering that I vaguely knew of the film by its reputation. It’s about as good as you can get for a film that’s rather satanic in nature…which is a 0. Still, it’s the kind of film that you can make a drinking Pepsi game out of but watch your sugar levels by the end. As such, we’re gonna run through this review with some choices. Lets see if you make the right ones because Rosemary sure didn’t. While the alternatives don’t have to be really drastic, you’ll see how her decisions were just very bad. It’s hard to emphasize enough just how bad they were as watching them in context during the film just makes it that much worse.

The main character is Rosemary of course with the main guy being named…Guy. Rosemary has always wanted a kid, but Guy is too busy with his career. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been going well as of late so things are tense. The characters meet an old couple who are rather nosy and decide to bother the main characters a lot. While Guy was hesitant to meet them at first, he becomes best buds with them rather quickly. Overnight he also decides that he wants a kid. At the same time, a girl that the old couple was taking care of seemingly committed suicide although she had seemed perfectly happy the day before. The old couple brings you a Chocolate cake courtesy of Guy and for once they don’t barge into your apartment which is convenient since you were planning on having a kid. The cake tastes kind of strange but Guy insists that you eat it…or else.

A. Throw the cake at Guy
B. Eat the cake
C. Put it in the fridge and say you’ll eat it later.

Ah well, Rosemary chooses option B. Fortunately she threw out part of it when Guy wasn’t looking. This causes the drugs to not fully work so she is conscious for the next few hours, but can’t move. She wakes up to a Satanic ritual where people are painting her with blood and a demon approaches her to have a kid. She sees her husband make the pact where he turns into Satan temporarily and all of her neighbors are in on it. Rosemary then wakes up the next morning where Guy explains that he made their kid while she was asleep and the giant slash marks on her body are from his unclipped nails.

A. Sounds legit
B. Grab the gun under the bed
C. Sounds legit (After Guy heads to work you board a plane to Europe)

Rosemary chooses option A. She is then given a strange concoction by her elderly neighbors which starts a series of powerful surges of pain. Her local doctor (Brought to her by the neighbors) tells Rosemary that this is normal and forbids her from reading any books or confiding in anyone. Rosemary’s friends tell her to stop taking the drink and after a day the pain stops. The neighbor then comes back with another drink.

A. I’m no fool. That drink brings pain…like this! (Shove the neighbor out the door)
B. Give me that. (Drink it all)
C. I’ll drink that….later. (Chuck it in the sink)

Rosemary’s intelligence continues to decline as she drinks it again. Her reasoning seems to be that the drink helped her gain immunity to the pain even though it stopped when she had stopped drinking. Weird….Meanwhile, Rosemary’s friend comes over and tells her that this isn’t natural. He tells her to meet him outside the next day, but Rosemary tells Guy first. The friend mysteriously dies after that and Rosemary finally starts to put 2 and 2 together. She runs to her original doctor, which is the safest place she can think of because she already told Guy that she was planning to see him a while back. The Doctor also perks up when she mentions her current Doctor.

A. On second thought….I’m out of here!
B. I need to go to sleep. Mind if I use the secluded room in the back after hours so the place will be deserted?
C. Break the alliance or I break you!

Rosemary chooses option B so she is kidnapped once again and forced to have the kid. When she wakes up, they tell her that the baby die. Rosemary partially accepts this, but apparently the neighbors want to mock her so they bring the baby to the room adjacent to hers and let it cry for a while. Rosemary grabs a knife and we’re led to think that she has finally gained an iota of intelligence. She breaks into the room and is surrounded by a bunch of old people standing around her baby who is in one of those carriages so you can’t see him.

A. Ever hear of the Chainsaw Massacre folks?
B. Give me the baby and nobody has to die!
C. Drop the knife in shock

Rosemary chooses the final option. She then decides to fall in line with the Satanic cult and raise the child of Satan. It’s a rather dreary end to a dreary film. All I could say at the end of it was good riddance. It’s a truly terrible movie from start to finish. As you can tell from the options above, Rosemary was a really bad main character who didn’t help the situation at all. She consistently made all of the worst decisions possible and could stretch your disbelief for the character. I don’t get how you could fall for so many of the cheapest tricks in the book. A Doctor telling you not to look at any medical books when you’re having a baby? Intense pain and not seeing another doctor? Drinking a weird drink that is giving you pain? Waking up to a ritual and many signs point to it being real but ignoring it? Guy being in the ritual and not piecing it together til the end?

Rosemary was just terrible and there were so many chances for her to escape. She should have gone with her friends or just gotten on a plane without telling Guy. She had dozens of opportunities but squandered them all. Dropping the knife at the end and just playing along with the others was also pretty terrible. There were no good characters here of course as the rest were all evil or just cameos like the friend. Guy is in on it so he decided to trade his kid and wife for job security and success. The rest of the people were all Satan worshipers so there was no saving them.

It’s not as if the film is very violent or anything, but it’s just no fun. The satanic themes in the foreground/background the whole time drag the film through the mud. Seeing Rosemary make all of the wrong choices is no fun either as it just makes you wish that the movie could have gotten a better main character. The ending is fairly terrible as well although I was expecting nothing less. I can’t think of a single good scene in this film and none of the jump scares are particularly convincing either. The film spoiled the fact that Guy was evil from the start and the neighbors part was obvious ever since the ritual at the beginning of the film. So, it’s one of those movies where you know who the villain is from the start and you’re waiting for Rosemary to figure it out. The problem is that she can’t even figure out how to stop spilling the beans on all of her plans to Guy.

Overall, This film is about as terrible as you’ve likely heard or suspect from the plot summary. Stay as far away from this film as possible and naturally this goes for the sequel as well. I’d recommend watching something a little more fun like the original Sonic movie. It’s hard to do much worse than this to be honest which is really saying something. Rosemary’s Baby lived up to its reputation, but in this case that was part of the problem. What a terrible movie.

Overall 0/10

Under The Shadow Review

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It’s time for an indie horror film. Now, that can sound like a very dangerous combo. I haven’t had great luck with indie films as of late nor have I had luck with the recent horror films. If you want to be more accurate, you could also just say that I haven’t had any luck with either genre at all. Whether past or present, they typically don’t work out all that well. Still, maybe they would cancel each other out and the movie would be a success. This horror film actually is better than the vast majority of them. It’s not a film that you’d want to re watch, but it was better than expected. For a horror film, it was actually pretty decent.

This is one of the few films that I’ve seen subbed aside from anime movies so that was pretty neat. Well, the film starts off with Shideh and Iraj. They live in a war torn country where bombs are dropped every once in a while and everyone is pretty much doomed. Your only two options are to stay and try your luck or move to America where things are going well. Everyone leaves for New York, but Shideh doesn’t want to leave her home. Iraj tries to convince her, but then he’s called to serve in the war. Shideh decides that staying in the home with their daughter Dorsa will still be doable, but then they begin to be haunted by the Djinn. These powerful genie want to take Dorsa away. They seem to prefer not to get their hands dirty so they rarely launch any actual attacks, but the threat remains. Can the heroes escape these spirits or is the house simply not big enough for the lot of them?

Well, lets go into the reasons as to why this film is better than the average horror. There’s no animal violence. You heard that right folks. I admit that it’s rather shocking, but there isn’t a random dog or bird death in the whole film. That’s a horror staple and I’m glad that this film ignored it. There aren’t any random fanservice scenes either if I recall correctly. No random shower scene to drop the film a few stars. It’s also not unnecessarily violent with the spirits just trying to eat everyone. As I mentioned, they’re pretty relaxed and chill the whole time. These are spirits that you can’t be friends with, but at least they’re not too over the top dangerous.

One thing that this film does have in common with other horror movies is that the main characters are pretty annoying though. Shideh overreacts for everything and comes across as super defensive. She blames her husband for not convincing her to stop partying and aiding the rebels in a futile mob display at her college which banned her from going back. She wants to stay at her house even though it’s not the smart thing to do and she constantly gets mad at her daughter and cracks. (Yells) It’s very hard to be sympathetic with her during the movie and she never really becomes a nice person. She does have a final confrontation with Iraj on the phone though where Iraj finally cracks, but more on that later.

Dorsa makes sure to get the heroes in as much trouble as she can. She’s really attached to this doll that she has, but she ends up letting the Djinn get it. How the Djinn work is that they can’t mess with you until they have one of your belongings. I mean, they did break into the house to grab it so they technically could attack witho or without the objects, but maybe it’s an honor code of sorts. Whatever the reason, Dora makes it very easy for them. She keeps leaving doors open and trying to break into their hideout. She stops Dora from escaping a few times because she wants the doll even more than life itself. It’s even her fault that the fake out at the end works because Dorsa is so mean and inconsiderate during the whole film that her actions at the end were pretty believable. Dorsa just isn’t a team player and she does her best to cast doubt on everyone.

Finally we have Iraj. He’s the most reasonable of the main characters. If he had been around it would have been a lot tougher for the Djinn which is why they had to break into the government offices and make sure that the guy was drafted. He calls from time to time to remind Shideh that she should leave already even if it’s always futile. Finally, he seemingly cracks at the end and throws out a lot of insults. Of course, another explanation is that the demons got to him and forced him to say that or they just mimicked his voice. I like to think that he just cracked though since everyone tends to crack in these horror films and that way he would be no exception.

One of the most well done parts of the film was the final triple fake out. So, Shideh starts to run for the basement because the walls were all caving in from the latest missille. Unfortunately, Dorsa stops because she really wants her doll. Shideh heads back and grabs her so then they make it down. That’s when Shideh seemingly hears Dorsa yelling for help from upstairs. If that’s Dorsa, then who is the girl with Shideh? The girl half heartedly tells Shideh to wait and see so she just shoves the girl away and heads upstairs. She finds Dorsa hiding under the bed, but then she shifts into a monster and grabs Shideh. No worries, Shideh’s dealt with these guys before and overpowers the comically weak Djinn and heads back downstairs.

Unfortunately, Dorsa is having another tantrum so she runs to the Djinn so she can be protected. Unfortunately..it was a trap! They use reality warping powers to try and take Dorsa down for the count, but Shideh just overpowers the illusion and sends them to oblivion once more. I suppose Shideh should get some claps for how she kept humiliating these monsters, but I still didn’t like her as a character. Either way, it was a pretty great moment since the scene had her running up and down the building since it was always hard to know which Dorsa was real. Get ready for that plot twist ending by the way…it makes things pretty interesting. All horror films need a twist ending after all so I’m glad that this film didn’t forget to add it. That’s a horror staple that we need to keep. Even action films are doing them nowadays and you know that that’s a good sign.

The film can drag a little when the Djinn aren’t around though. I can’t say that the actual story is very interesting. Since the cast isn’t likable and all of the neighbors vanish when important things are happening, you’re always just waiting for the haunting to start. Maybe it’s for the best since if the Djinn were to appear more, then there would be more time for dicey stuff to happen. Still, it’s a tough balancing act to follow. The visuals for the Djinn were fun when they popped up even if it was pretty rare to save the budget. I liked how fast the villains were as well since one even used super speed to blow by Shideh at one point. Seeing more scenes like that would have been cool.

Overall, if there’s anything that I’d change or add, I’d maybe reduce the time that the film spent looking for the doll. Everyone knew that they wouldn’t find it until the spirits wanted them too after all so we would get the general gist of the situation with a quick montage or something. The characters hold it back somewhat, but the film isn’t bad. It’s decently interesting and manages to fit in all of the jump scares at the end. You’ll be left with some questions like why a little kid knows so much about the Djinn, but I guess someone needs to know about them. After all, these guys have been around for a while so there should be other witnesses. If you want to see a horror film, then I’d recommend this one over most of the others. It may be the best horror film aside from Poltergeist III and maybe Lights Out. It may also beat Lights Out to be honest. It’s the kind of film where you’ll start to forget some of the specifics, but you’ll remember the overall film and that’s a good thing. Cut out Dorsa and I’m sure the film would instantly jump up a star.

Overall 5/10

Lights Out Review

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It’s time for a fairly recent horror movie. This one actually managed to be fairly decent as far as horror movies go. Unfortunately, it slipped up towards the end of the film. The ending may not be as terrible as something like The Innocents, but it’s certainly still a Debbie Downer. It may not be winning any awards from me, but you could certainly do worse if you’re looking for a quick scare before Thanksgiving is upon us.

The film starts off in an abandoned toy factory esque place. The assistant notices that someone has broken into the building and warns her boss about this. He basically tells her that he has no time for games so she leaves. Afterwards, he gets ready to leave, but the creature attacks him and the guy doesn’t live through the experience. It’s a fairly solid way to start the film off and it isn’t even all that violent. For once, the scene is actually handled fairly well and the creature’s design was pretty good. Honestly, I felt like the whole film should have taken place in that shadowy store.

Moving along, the creature is named Diana and she has become friends with Sophie, Rebecca’s Mom. Sophie and Diana have become quite close and that’s why Diana wants to murder all of Rebecca’s friends. She can’t let anyone come in between them. Unfortunately, this is having a negative impact on Martin, Rebecca’s brother. Child services get involved and Rebecca decides to keep Martin for a little while. The board won’t have it so Rebecca has to head back. She decides to spend the night, but will she be able to vanquish Diana or is it all over for her?

The film seems to lose its sense of direction at several points, which is where things get rough for it. For example, Diana is shown to be a fake friend. She is just using Sophie because she wants the Mom to feel the same sadness that she felt. Okay…but her plan only works if Sophie ends up being messed up. Unfortunately, that is the case as Sophie doesn’t mind being thrown around since she believes that she deserves it. Sophie’s a pretty terrible character as she puts Diana before Martin and Rebecca several times. She seems to want to be a good Mother, but then back pedals at other points. At one point, she gives Rebecca a letter saying that she needs help before she is dragged back into the darkness. So, Sophie seems to be somewhat aware of the fact that Diana is not her friend, but then forgets it again. I suppose it’s just part of her whole Martyr disposition, but it definitely doesn’t do the character any favors.

Diana’s power level also seems to fluctuate quite a lot. In some scenes, she can’t stand the light to the point where she won’t go near it. By the end, she’s going through the light no problem. It burns her, but she can take the heat long enough to do whatever she wants to do. She has a good amount of super strength as she can throw people around and quickly stab others, not to mention that she is also bullet proof. At the same time, the heroes can struggle against her quite effectively so maybe she’s a little weaker than Captain America. Regardless, she makes for a good villain, but not really a great character. I’d prefer her goal to simply be “Destroy everyone” or something rather than just sparing people sometimes and attacking in others. Going after Martin seemed like a random move towards the beginning when they were watching a film. Wouldn’t that instantly destroy her “friendship” with Sophie? I imagine that it would override her current condition. Diana also took a while to make her move since we find out that she has been around, even when Rebecca was a kid. I guess she just didn’t attack if you didn’t get in her way.

The main problem with the ending is its one of those classic “I can’t beat the villain so it’s time to exit the game” moments. It’s portrayed as the right call of course, but it’s definitely not the best way to win. There wasn’t really any other course of action in this example, but that just makes it all the more tragic. Not to mention the fact that the character’s reputation is going to be slung through the mud now since nobody will know the truth.

As per usual, the cops don’t look so good here. You can’t blame them quite as much this time since they are up against a monster that can easily defeat them, but they still could have handled the situation better. The cops take a while to find the main characters and even once they do, they don’t do a good job of handling the situation. They clearly know that they’re dealing with someone dangerous, but they still don’t watch their distance. They did try shooting at least, but one of the cops just waved the main character off when she tried to give some advice. It’s a good thing that Rebecca had a lot of survival skills earlier because those were more dependable.

I can’t say that I was really a fan of Bret. He does help out a lot and certainly does better than most horror characters, but he’s just not that likable. The scenes with him trying to show Rebecca that she is making the wrong move didn’t really go over well. Taking Martin definitely seemed like the right call although she did handle it in a pretty sour way. He may have been right, but he started off rather accusing so it makes sense that Rebecca would get defensive. Rebecca got to be a decent character by the end although the beginning makes sure to show you why she’s not a good role model for Martin. She certainly went far with the whole rebellious streak.

This is another horror film that doesn’t play out as you would typically expect it to. The body count increases by the end, but it’s more of a slow burner as Diana doesn’t do anything for quite a while. It works well to an extent and as I mentioned, this is technically one of the better horror films. On the other hand, it means that there isn’t a whole lot for Diana to do except give us some fake jump scares. I can live with that if it beats the alternative I suppose.

Overall, Lights Out isn’t half bad. The film never has a gritty moment just for kicks and the whole film is rather chill when it comes to that. The monster is fairly good and the backstory is rather tragic while not being over the top. The characters may not be great, but they are better than their counterparts. On the other hand, the romance with Bret and Rebecca is fairly poor. It just reminds you why these two are going to have a hard time trying to win custody. The ending isn’t very good either and it was hard to really get Diana and Sophie. Sometimes they acted rationally and other times they did not. Sophie really could have handled this whole debacle a lot better and if Diana was serious about destroying everyone, she could have really done it at any time. She waited too long due to plot hax. If you’re a big fan of horror movies then this could be a decent one to check out. If you want a film that I could recommend to everyone, check out Scooby Doo: Zombie Island!

Overall 4/10

Mama Review

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I’m afraid that it’s time for another horror film and this one is certainly not very good at all. In fact, it’s one of the weaker horror films, but I suppose the writers and producers can take solace in the fact that they tried to grab as many horror tropes as they could. This is probably a good film to show people if you want to explain why the horror genre just isn’t good. There’s no other reason to check this film out though so you’ll want to stay as far away as you possibly can.

The film starts off with a guy taking his kids to an abandoned shelter in the forest so he can destroy them, but a creature puts an end to them first. This creature then takes care of the kids for many years until Lucas shows up and brings them back to civilization. Together with Annabel, he tries to rehabilitate them and get them to act like normal kids. The problem is that the creature doesn’t like this turn of events and prepares to show them what true power really is.

While the plot may sound slightly different, it’s essentially the same old same old. The ghost is now in the house and it keeps haunting Annabel time after time after time. “Mama” never actually does anything though so maybe she was just enjoying the jump scares. No matter, it worked out well for Annabel. Even when the creature had Annabel alone, it never made a move. At least we do know that it can fight though so I’ll give the film some slight props there. Mama is slightly weaker than other characters like the Grudge as it doesn’t seem like it can really do any reality warping. Still, it has the ability to corrupt and destroy what it touches. It steals the life force of its prey, albeit a little slowly. It has basic super strength and speed as well. We can’t forget the levitation either and its ability to summon edible moths. Mama’s not a great villain, but at least the monster actually got to appear and had a distinct design and power set. It could have almost been sympathetic since it helped the kids out and all. The ending wrecks that though as it decides to take out another kid for the prophecy. The ghost should have realized that such a move would probably hurt the kid, but I guess she’ll settle for having the ghost spirit as a friend instead.

Lets start talking about the array of negatives in the film. To start with, there is animal violence. I definitely saw that coming. The two wolves dying in the opening credits weren’t as bad as they could be since it was all drawn using crayons. However, we then saw the kids eating moths later on which was very gruesome and disturbing. That’s a nice way to lose some points, but the film was really just getting started.

Annabel and Lucas are pretty bad characters and that’s why you will end up rooting for the Step Aunt, Cousin, something person. She wanted custody of the kids and while she wouldn’t have fared too well, she would have done better than this pair. Lucas is knocked out for most of the film and when he does show up, he’s knocked out rather easily. He talked a good game, but crumbled when it counted and shouldered all of the responsibility on Annabel even though she never wanted a part in this. He was rather rude the whole time. Annabel’s not that great either although at least she ignores the bad advice that her friends were giving her. She gradually learns to get better with the kids. Still, she helps us get to the next horror cliche of the two leads messing around with each other only to stop when the villains…or in this case the kids show up. One thing you know from horror movies is that ghosts don’t like to see any inappropriate behavior and it usually costs your life.

As for the beginning of the film it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. I thought it was hinting that the Dad was going to murder the kids because of the ghost or some kind of plot twist. By the time you reach the ending, the only real conclusion you can come to is that the guy was just insane. It’s rather grim and dark for no real reason and the plot didn’t have any reason to be here. It’s good that the ghost was watching, but we didn’t need any more villainous characters. The ending manages to top the beginning in how bad it is though and destroys the movie even further. What could have maybe scratched by at a 2 ends up going all the way over.

By the end, it was all futile. The ghost grabs one of the kids and jumps off with her. The little girl dies and will likely now be a moth monster like the Mama. It’s definitely pretty dark and that’s the kind of ending that you never really want to see. I don’t mind the classic “Villain comes out of the closet in the final scene to destroy the main characters” as it is more of an implied sad ending as opposed to a direct one. Ending with this just makes the whole story pointless. The villain won and now she can return whenever she wants to get the other kid. I also don’t think it makes much sense since she had been raising the children and protecting them all those years.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for the fact that the film revolved around the two little girls so much. It was rather gruesome to see them in the initial appearance as they were in very poor condition from living in the wilderness so long. They even lost their ability to speak for a while and while the older one started to get better, it was definitely a pretty dicey plot. It’s one that wasn’t handled all that badly, but throw in the deranged Mama who was watching their every moves and it was definitely not all that fun.

Overall, Mama is not a good horror film in the slightest. The ending cements it as a completely terrible movie. The characters are all pretty bad for the most part and the villain doesn’t make any sense either. Lucas in particular is rather annoying as he takes the time to get lost in the forest for a whole day even when he knows that Annabel is being haunted at home and asked him to get home as soon as possible. It’s little things like that which remind you that this is a horror movie so none of the characters are going to act very smart. If you want a good horror movie to watch instead…you’re going to need to do some intense searching!

Overall 0/10