Mama 2013

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Mama is clumsily written and choppily edited, but Chastain doesn't have a bad scene in it, and you can see why she chose to be in this supernatural ghost story. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: The frustration ... is how much the movie leans on made-ya-jump scares and contrived plot devices when its quieter chills and already fraught setups are so potent. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Mama" is skillfully made, and although Chastain is the best thing in it, she's not the only thing in it. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Movieline: Is this Chastain's reputation-besmirching Norbit? Pshaw -- for my money, it's her best performance yet. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Instead of delivering buckets of guts and gore, this ghost story offers a strong sense of time and place, along with the kind of niceties that don't often figure into horror flicks ... Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It never hits the high notes of Mr. del Toro's own films or successfully weaves between reality and fantasy as it should. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "Mama" announces the arrival of a director who works unusually well with actors-the two children are truly scary-and who creates highly charged environments, effective sound designs and powerful fantasy sequences. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Though "Mama" doesn't work, it has the ghost of a good idea at its core. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Plenty of horror movies are willing to settle for making audiences jump. Mama is more ambitious by far: It makes sure viewers are emotionally committed even when they aren't clutching their armrests or covering their eyes. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The atmosphere is appropriately creepy, and there are some starts, if not outright scares. But it just gets stupid. Read more

Drew Hunt, Chicago Reader: Screenplay contrivances aside, it's as stylish and atmospheric as modern horror gets. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: There's something eerily effective about juxtaposing childhood innocence with the violent, the supernatural, the deranged. Evil shines all the more brightly when held up against the sweet promise of youth. Read more

Emily Rome, Entertainment Weekly: Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short, knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Film.com: This is a picture about how a mother's love can be nourishing at its best but suffocating in the extreme. Chastain embraces that idea wholly, without squeezing the life out of it. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: [The movie] has more integrity than its creepshow peers. The story basically comes down to a dead-looking woman who doesn't want to be a mother fighting for parental custody against a long-dead woman who does. (Grad students, start your theses.) Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: In essence, Mama represents a throwback and a modest delight for people who like a good scare but prefer not to be terrorized or grossed out. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The metaphorical mother-child connection becomes a mystical horror show of significant power. Sadly it comes too late to save "Mama." Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: More effective than you might expect. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's an interesting effort ... although, sadly, in the end "effort" is really the crucial word. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: Surprisingly, this patchwork pastiche often works. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: If you're going to have a ghost in your movie, it might be a good thing to present a viable alternative to that ghost. "Mama," however, presents a battle between two not very good options before crumbling like a sheet on a string. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Chastain has an excellent time. And so did I, for most of the movie: It's much more suspenseful than violent, being careful not to allow us to figure out Mama too quickly. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Like another del Toro stamp-of-approval Spanish horror entry, The Orphanage, Muschietti's Mama is full of arty tropes - sepia-toned flashbacks, flickering lights, menacing murmurings. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It starts out strongly, using evocative visuals and an unsettling backstory to establish a creepy tableau, but it proves unable to sustain those strengths all the way to the finish line. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: "Mama" succeeds in scaring the wits out of us and leaving some lingering, deeply creepy images ... Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: You know something is up when what looks like a cheapie fright flick is produced by Guillermo Del Toro and boasts an Oscar-nominated actress in Jessica Chastain. Mama doesn't live up to their potential, but the film knows how to creep you out. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Even if the beats are familiar, Muschietti sustains a remarkable mood throughout: wintry, elemental and stark, like a late Sylvia Plath poem. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Mama" is a smartly refreshing departure, a truly scary movie exemplifying horror at its purest. Read more

Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: [A] respectable entry into the horror genre that values chills over kills. Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: The problem is that [the] movie barely meets the minimum generic requirements, and thus comes off as pretentious for presuming to hover so airily above them. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: An elegant and edgy thriller, Mamais a ghost story laced with fairytale sensibilities, benefitting from the nightmarish, artful influence of executive producer Guillermo del Toro. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: The fact that Guillermo del Toro is an executive producer of Mama is a tip-off that this won't be just another horror film with misbehaving and soon-to-be-dismembered teenagers or a drooling, slime-soaked monster. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: By splitting the action between several different characters and locations, the plot dissipates the suspense and lacks focus, as if it has been bolted together from disparate, ill-fitting pieces. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Expertly conjured atmosphere only gets Muschietti so far. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: What's under the bed? Who's behind that door? What's making those vaguely satanic noises? These and other thought-provoking questions are entertained in Mama, a visually polished but overly repetitive chiller. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Mama never delivers the primal terror its premise would suggest. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: I was guessing right till the bitter, scary, transcendent end. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: There's something dead and rotting at the center of "Mama," and it isn't the ghost of the woman who lends the horror film its title. Read more