American Mary

Description from Netflix:

Medical student Mary Mason is becoming dissatisfied with her path in life, mostly because she’s piling up massive debt.  But when she’s offered a lucrative opportunity to get involved in extreme body-modification surgeries, she jumps at the chance.

My thoughts:

Sure.  The massive debt factored into her dissatisfaction.  She was in school to become a surgeon, after all, and that isn’t cheap.

You know what her main driving decision was, though?  My money would be on getting drugged and raped by one of her professors.  She had delved into the world of body modification before that point, but it was more of a one-off surgery to get some money.  After being raped, she dropped out of school and started doing body-modification on a more full-time basis.

First, the good.  I loved Katharine Isabelle as Mary Mason.  She had a complex character to play, and she nailed every scene.  I can’t imagine a better actress for this role.

Whether through the style or my sheer confusion, I found myself interested the entire time.  The running time is 103 minutes, but I never once felt bored, or found myself staring at my watch, imploring it to move along.  Considering it’s a slow-moving movie, that’s a pretty impressive feat.

To me, this film kind of had the same feel as Excision.  But that’s probably because they both involve surgery, and I’m not very imaginative when it comes to comparing movies.

Anyone who knows me know that I enjoy a good revenge movie.  I assume it comes from my love of Westerns.  (Also, Payback is one of my all-time favorite movies.)  So, when this film took a turn towards the revenge side of things, I was completely on board.  It was a different kind of revenge than I was used to.  After all, she was a surgeon.  Things were bound to get really weird.

And they did.

But only a little bit.  And that was only a minor part of the story.

And that was really my main problem with this film.  It didn’t seem like it knew what it wanted to be.  It was all over the map.  It was a revenge movie.  It was a female empowerment movie.  It was a cautionary tale to those heading down the wrong path.  It was a kind of love story. 

It was all those things and more.  Sometimes it worked.  Other times, it felt directionless.  A bunch of ideas all crammed into one movie, without necessarily being connected all the time.  It felt disjointed and strained.  It definitely could’ve been tightened up a bit.

I can apply that same criticism to the characters in general.  Many of them seemed to change depending on the scene.  More specifically, Mary’s character changed multiple times throughout the film, often with little-to-no reason.  Scene-to-scene, I never knew what I was going to get.  Would it be the confident surgeon?  The revenge-seeker with ice water in her veins?  The timid student?  The hardened businesswoman?  As I mentioned earlier, Katharine Isabelle was great as all those things, but the swing between all of them was jarring at times.

I feel like they were trying to make a very important movie with a very important message, yet I didn’t quite understand because of the disjointed nature of it all.  However, it’s also quite possible that I didn’t get it because I’m not an overly intelligent person.  That option is certainly still on the table.

As it was, I still liked it.  But I feel like I easily could’ve loved this film.

This is only the second full-length film from the Twisted Twins (Jen & Sylvia Soska).  While far from perfect, it showed a ton of promise.  I can’t wait to see what they do next. 

Rating: 3/5

Let's Talk About: World War Z trailer

Don't worry.  This isn't going to become a trailer-review blog.  I've got a review of American Mary on the way.  But I felt the need to say something about this.



I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I really don't care if zombies are fast or not.  I know they're not the standard Romero zombies, but it doesn't bother me a bit.  If you want to put fast zombies in your movie, more power to you.  I've seen a number of good, fast-zombie movies.  So the fact that these zombies are runners doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I have read this book, and, like everyone who has read this book, I love it.  I have also listened to the audio book twice now, because it's amazing.  (In case you haven't heard, they are releasing an unabridged version of the audiobook on May 14.  And yes, I will be listening to it.)

That being said, I'm still really looking forward to this movie.  Basically, it looks like they have taken scenes from the book (Yonkers, the desert shooting exercises, etc.), and are using the Pitt character (IMDB tells me his name is Gerry Lane) as a way to connect them all together.

The first time I saw this preview, I was a little annoyed.  That goes against the very spirit of the book.  This isn't an oral history of the zombie war.  This is one man being the hero.

But, after thinking about it for a bit and seeing it again, I'm okay with that.

To film a movie as the book was written would be a bit disjointed.  Too many characters.  Too many locations.

I'm not saying that this is the best way to do it.  And I'm not saying it's going to be a great movie.  But what I am saying is that I think it could be good, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Let's Talk About: The Purge trailer

As you know, I saw Evil Dead this past week.  One of the trailers before the movie was for The Purge.  I had heard some excited giggles about it, but didn't know anything about it.
Anyway, here it is.



At first blush, I was kind of excited about it.  It looks creepy and intense and all those things a good thriller should be.
And it has a pretty cool premise.  For one night out of the year, anything goes.  All that murderous rage you have pent up inside of you?  Let it out.  Kill a hobo.  Hell, kill an honor student.  The only authority you have to answer to is your own conscience (also, if that honor student's parents happen to have machetes at the ready, you will also have to answer to them).  Apparently 12 crime-filled-hours a year is enough to keep the crime rate down the other 364 days of the year.  (And, also, enough to keep unemployment amazingly low.)

But, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it all seemed.
Why are they wearing masks?  I don't deny that it's creepy, but why would they wear them?  They can't be punished for the things they do during The Purge.  I suppose it's possible there's an actual reason for this, but I doubt it.  I'm guessing they're wearing them to be creepy.  When really...who cares?  If I were in the house, I wouldn't care whether the people trying to kill me were in masks or not in masks.  I would just be trying to survive.  The masks wouldn't really concern me in that situation.
It all just feels a bit too much like The Strangers, but in different circumstances.
Don't get me wrong: I liked The Strangers.  Sure, I felt it could've been quite a bit better, but I still enjoyed myself (if for no other reason than seeing Dennis Reynolds take a shotgun blast to the head.  That guy...always joking).  That doesn't mean I want to watch a different version of it.
And, in The Strangers, they had a reason to wear the masks.  They could've been arrested if either Liv Tyler or Scott Speedman (I don't remember the character names, so I'm assuming they just played themselves in that movie) survived and was able to identify them.  That line of logic is irrelevant in The Purge.  Like I said, perhaps there is a reason for them wearing masks (they're the neighbors and don't want to be judged for killing someone, they fear retribution the next year, they're working for the government, etc.), but, since one of the characters has his mask off at the door, I'm left to assume there are no such reasons.  Which makes them irrelevant.

What kind of system - one that relies on keeping a family safe in the face of a yearly murderthon - can be disarmed by a kid?  Just by pushing a single button?  You gotta password protect that thing.

The line "Nothing will ever be okay ever again" annoys me to no end.  I have no idea what has happened up to that point, but I have a pretty good idea (my "good idea" revolves around Ethan Hawke dismembering a body with a hacksaw in front of his children).  Still, it's an obnoxious, overdramatic and obvious line.  I hope it doesn't make it into the movie.

This has nothing to do with the movie, but I just read that Lena Heady is broke.  That makes me sad.  I've always liked her.  I've seen her in quite a bit, and she's always been great.  Keep your head up, Lena.  It's gonna be okay.

I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the shot of them watching the neighbor sharpening his machete.  I really want to do that at some point.

I have no doubt in my mind that I will watch this at some point.  But I do not have high hopes for it.

Evil Dead

Description from Netflix:

When a group of friends vacations at an isolated cabin in the woods, they discover an evil Book of the Dead – and unwittingly release a swarm of bloodthirsty demons in this spine-chilling remake of Sam Raimi’s classic horror flick.

My thoughts:

I should probably stop using the Netflix recap as a starting point.  I feel like I’m correcting it half the time.  Including this one.

The friends were not so much “vacationing” as they were “helping a friend who was trying to break her heroin addiction.”  Same thing, really.

I really liked the heroin angle.  It gave all the characters a reason to be there.  It also gave the characters a reason to write-off the initial craziness of the possessed Mia.  “So she’s talking in weird voices, pacing in the driving rain and talking about seeing strange girls in the woods?  Big deal.  She’s trying to quit heroin cold turkey.”  In that sense, it was kind of brilliant.

The only thing that could’ve made that set-up better was if we, the audience, were also in the dark about it.  I didn’t love Lovely Molly, but I liked how it kept me in suspense.  Was she possessed, or was she just messed up by her drug use?  With that movie, it was never really clear.  With this movie, we already know she’s possessed.  There’s no ambiguity, and that tension is lost.  Not that it’s a big deal, really, but it was hard not to watch this and not at least think about Lovely Molly.

All that aside…

I loved this movie.  It wasn’t without its problems, for sure.  The acting was uneven (at best).  The script left quite a bit to be desired.  Some of the actions of the characters – especially Eric – ranked up near the top of some of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen any characters make.  In the scene where he actually unleashes the demon from the Necronomicon, he makes a series of terrible decisions.  Here are those decisions, in order:

1. When they find the book, they had just walked through a basement full of hanging dead cats.  The book is wrapped in a black garbage bag, then wrapped in barbed wire.  WRAPPED IN BARBED WIRE.

Looks inviting.  Let me curl up for a few hours with this puppy

2. After Eric cuts through the barbed wire, he looks at the book.  (In the original Evil Dead, the book was bound in human flesh.  I don’t remember them specifying the binding in this film, but it certainly looked like it could be flesh.)  There are numerous warnings written in large letters throughout the book.  My favorite being the all-caps “Don’t say it don’t write it don’t hear it.”

"Probably just a joke.  I'll do all those things."

3. Of course, he picks that page to stop on and start reading.  I take that back.  He doesn’t start reading.  Because the words that need to be read to summon the demon can’t be seen clearly.  So he takes a piece of paper, places it over the raised letters, and starts scribbling.  Like Lebowski finding a pornographic drawing.  Except with demon-summoning.

4. As he finds the words, he says them out loud.  To no one but himself, the twerpy little wannabe professor says them out loud.  Which, of course, summons the demon and gets poor Mia possessed.

5. After he does all this, and after he sees Mia behaving in a way that no one – not even a recovering heroin addict – would act, he still doesn’t say anything about the book until more people are infected.  And dead.  Because Eric is the worst.

Seriously.  Just look at this guy. I bet he loves talking about Walden.

That’s just one string of terrible decision making by one character.  This movie was full of them.  (Although, to be fair, this was the absolute worst of them.)

Still, despite my problems with the movie, I really, really loved this movie.  It was pretty tense throughout, and had quite a few legitimate scares, as well as a few jump-scares that got me. 

And the gore.  Oh man…the gore.  On top of the crazy amounts of fake blood used (buckets and buckets of blood), they also did a great job working in some incredibly gruesome scenes (hacking off limbs, bashing in heads with sinks, cutting tongues in half with box cutters, etc.).  It’s all a bit crazy, and definitely not for the feint of heart.  But I felt that it worked really well within the movie.  This wasn’t torture porn.  This wasn’t cutting people up just for the sake of showing people getting cut up.  This gore was all within the context of the film.  And it was beautiful and terrible.

What I really loved about this film was the fact that, while this was a dark & twisted movie, it also seemed like the filmmakers really had fun making it.  There was definitely a sense of devilish glee that ran throughout.  I could almost hear them giggling as they figured out more ways to dump massive amounts of blood on our heroes. 

I also really loved the subtle nods to the original.  There were plenty of scenes that were pulled directly from the original (not a surprise, seeing as how it’s a remake), but they also sprinkled in a lot of smaller references.  These are some of the ones I caught:

1. When we first meet Mia, she is wearing a Michigan State sweatshirt.  In the original, Linda was wearing a Michigan State sweatshirt.

2. When we meet Mia, she is sitting on top of a car that resembles Sam Raimi’s famous 1973 Oldsmobile Delta.

3. Mia’s brother (David) gives her a necklace that vaguely resembles the necklace Ash gives to Linda.

I’m sure there were more (and, like I mentioned, a lot of them were more obvious and built into the story), but I thought these three little scenes were a pretty cool subtle homage to the original.

A couple more small movie references from me:

Eric – the high school teacher who seemed to fancy himself a college professor – really took a beating in this movie.  I didn’t like him at all, but I started to feel bad for him after a while.  And yet, he kept coming back.  In that regard, he reminded me a little of Red from Pineapple Express.  Sadly, there was no mention of a Daewoo Lanos.

Possessed Mia said some terrible things to her brother about what was happening to the soul of his actual sister (since a demon now possessed her body and all).  A lot of what she was saying seemed to come almost directly from The Exorcist.

Overall, I really loved this movie.  It’s definitely not for everybody, but I thought it was terrific.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being my favorite movie of the year.  Granted, it’s still pretty early in the year (and I really loved Mama, as well), but this movie was fantastic.  While it’s hard not to compare it to the original, I didn’t find myself holding it up to the original.  It stands on its own as a great horror film. 

Rating: 5/5

American Zombie

Description from Netflix:

Part mockumentary, part unabashed gore-fest, this film follows two documentarians as they infiltrate a Los Angeles zombie community.

My thoughts:

First of all, the “unabashed gore-fest” is completely misleading.  There was very little blood in this movie.  And, what little blood there was (mostly at the end) could not be considered a “gore-fest”.

And I’m pretty sure a mockumentary is supposed to be interesting.  Or funny.  Or show the genre in a different light. 

This movie had none of that.

This film had 3 classifications of zombies:

Feral – Your common, everyday zombies.  They roam and bite.  That’s the assumption, anyway.  We don’t see much of them.

Low-functioning – A step above feral, but not capable of thought.  They don’t roam and bite, and are actually able to join the workforce.  The ones we see are working on an assembly line.  Think the zombies putting away shopping carts in Shaun of the Dead or the collared zombies in Fido.

High-functioning – Pretty much like humans.  But undead.  They can pass on the zombie virus, but most choose not to.

 This movie focuses almost entirely on the high-functioning zombies (and when I say “almost entirely” I mean “we see maybe 30 seconds of the other 2 classifications”).  And that’s a shame.  Had they included the other classes a bit more, perhaps this movie would’ve been interesting.  But they didn’t, and it wasn’t.

Through the eyes of our two main documentarians (Grace & John), we meet a handful of these zombies.  To me, the most interesting of these was Joel, a zombie rights activist who headed up the group Z.A.G. (Zombie Advocacy Group).  Through him, I thought I could see where this film was going.  Heading back to Romero (especially Dawn of the Dead), zombie movies have been closely tied to holding the mirror up to society.  With all the talk in this movie about equal rights, I thought they would be making a statement about same-sex marriage or something along those lines.

Sadly, I was very much mistaken, and gave this movie entirely too much credit. 

[SPOILER ALERT]

At the end of this movie, we find out that even the high-functioning zombies are, indeed, still zombies, and their end goal is to take over.  Even Joel becomes violent and screams things like, “Your day is done!  We will rise!” 

So, unless the message was “homosexuals are evil and will try to take over the world as soon as they are able to marry” – and I really hope it wasn’t – there was no message to this movie.  Which means it was pointless.

[END SPOILER]

About halfway through the movie, we find that all the zombies are planning on attending an event called “Live Dead”.  Basically, it’s a place for zombies to gather, talk about zombie things, buy zombie things, do zombie drugs, make sweet zombie love (as best as they can, anyway), and listen to zombie music.  Like Burning Man, but with zombies.  John was convinced that terrible things happened there (he kept asking all the zombies if they ate human flesh), so he had Grace work hard to try to get them in.

Which she did.

Of course, once it looked like stuff was starting to head towards the crazy zombie stuff, our documentary crew was kicked out.  And, even though they were able to film some of the events, they were far away and didn’t get a very clear picture of what happened.

And that’s pretty much it.

I had a number of problems with this film.

The biggest problem I had was that it was amazingly boring.  As I mentioned, we spend pretty much all of our time with 4 high-functioning zombies.  The make-up wasn’t great, to say the least.  Most of these zombies were nothing more but normal looking people with a little bit of grey painted on their necks.  They showed a bit more of the wounds in a few scenes, but not very much, and it didn’t look great when they did show it.

What we were left with was a group of documentarians talking to people who looked and acted almost exactly like normal people.  And most of them were pretty boring.  They would talk about their zombie experiences, but they weren’t very interesting.

Much like Mimesis, this was a great concept, but terrible execution.  It could’ve been really good, but it wasn’t even mildly interesting.  A boring, pointless movie.  No wonder I never had anyone recommend it to me.

Also, John (one of our main documentarians) was an entirely unlikable person.

Rating: 1/5

Zombie Talk:

As I mentioned earlier, there were three classifications of zombies in this film.  I spelled out the specifics on them at that point, so I don’t feel the need to go over them again.

I would assume they could be killed by a blow to the head, but it wasn’t really discussed.  There was a scene where they interview a PI.  After tracking down some family members, he was then asked to “take care of them” if they had been turned into zombies.  He then demonstrated how he did this, by hacking up various mannequins in a parking lot.  While he did seem to focus on the head (beating it in with a baseball bat, driving it over it with a car, severing the head with a shovel, etc.), he also spent some time bashing in the stomach and severing various appendages.  Still, I was left with the impression that destroying the brain would kill the zombie.

I would also like to talk about the life-span of a zombie.  According to the Zombie Survival Guide, the average life-span of a zombie is 3-5 years [pg.10].  That seems a little long to me, but I’ll defer to Brooks on this matter.  Since we’re discussing intelligent zombies, there’s a chance they would have found something that would allow them to extend this period.  They didn’t say anything about it in the movie, so I doubt anything like that had been developed.

Even so, over the years, each zombie would be steadily decomposing.  Month-to-month, they would begin to look noticeably worse.  By the end of your first zombified year, you would start to look pretty bad.  Towards the end, there wouldn’t be much left of your body.  Just a crawling, chomping skeleton (and not even much crawling or chomping, as most of the muscles would be gone).

Yet, in this movie, you would never know most of these people were zombies.  Some of them have been dead for several years, yet, aside from a slightly grey neck and some yellowing teeth, there’s no real evidence of being dead.  At one point, we meet the founder/emcee of Live Dead, who tells us that he has been a zombie for 7 years.  And yet he looked like a normal person. 

I know zombie movies are not founded in reality, but at least try to make a little bit of sense.

Last but not least, I’d like to talk about the origin of the zombie outbreak.  In this film, people were turned into zombies if they died “a violent death”.  Like a gunshot wound or something like that.  They could also be turned if bitten by a zombie, but, apparently, the outbreak started by violent deaths.  Like ghosts.

Looking past the rampant stupidity of that method, and I was still left with one main question: why now?  People have been dying violent deaths since the beginning of time.  Why is it that people are just now being turned into zombies?  What changed?  Why did Abel not become a zombie when killed by Cain? 

I don’t demand that an origin be given.  But, if you are going to give the virus an origin, at least give it one that makes some kind of sense.

Dead Season

A small note before I start this review: for zombie movies, I have decided to add a section to the bottom of each review called "Zombie Talk", where I discuss the tendencies and rules of the zombies involved.  A lot of zombie movies have zombies based on "The Romero Zombie" (slow, shambling, unthinking, kill with a shot to the head, etc.).  But many zombie movies have their own twist on the Romero zombie.  I think it's important to note the rules around each movie.
And now, without further adieu...

Description from Netflix:
When a worldwide viral outbreak leads to a plague of zombies scouring the earth for the living, two survivors flee the chaos of America to a remote island, hoping for a chance to start a new life.  What they find is unrelenting horror.

My thoughts:
I really didn't know anything about this movie.  I was looking for something to watch through Netflix Instant, and I came across this cover.  Which looks pretty awesome.  The description was generic enough that I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.
What I got was a pretty typical low-budget zombie movie.  With some odd twists.

We mainly follow the travels of Elvis & Tweeter (as opposed to Tweeter & The Monkey Man...that's another movie entirely).  As the movie starts, we find that they have never met in person, but have been in communication over a CB radio.  They have a tentative plan to meet up and head to an island.
But, as we already know, the living are usually a bigger threat to survival than the undead.

And some of the living kind of remind you of Henry Rollins

They come across Kurt and his merry band of misfits.  And by "merry" I mean "kind of crazy."  Generally speaking, when a leader says stuff like, "We do what we need to survive," he's usually talking about their sociopathic tendencies.  Also, if he says that and immediately hands you a plateful of dry strips of meat to eat, you probably shouldn't eat them.  Because they're from a human.  And you know that.  (This is the worst kept secret in the movie.)

Also living within this gated community of cannibals is Rachel, Kurt's teenage daughter.  He is so terrified of her dying that he has kept her locked in her room for 10 months.  He brings her food, but she doesn't eat much of it.  Kurt asks Tweeter to talk to her - as the only other women at the house are older...and whores - and Tweeter and Rachel end up hatching a plan to escape the island.

They make their escape.  They're chased, both by humans and zombies.  This part of the movie has a bit of a 28 Days Later feel to it.  Not nearly as good, obviously, but it's not hard to see how 28 Days Later influenced the last 30 minutes of this movie.

Elvis smash!  Polk Salad Zombie, amiright?!

There were a couple things I really liked about this movie.  For the most part, the main characters used handheld weapons.  Guns were employed from time to time, but they weren't the main weapons that were used.  Elvis used a sledgehammer (see above) and Tweeter used a machete (see below).

I really liked the setting.  The bulk of the movie took place on an island, and it looked terrific.  They operated out of a gated community on a hill, so you could see a lot of the island, which was quite beautiful.  There were also a lot of shots on the beach.  A few times, we got to see zombies staggering out of the trees and onto the beach.  For some reason, zombie-killing in the sand made me happy.
I also thought the acting of the main characters was pretty good.  Scott Peat (Elvis), Marissa Merrill (Tweeter), Corsica Wilson (Rachel) and James C. Burns (Kurt) all did a great job.
That's what I liked.  Here is what I didn't like.

Some of the characters - Elvis in particular - completely changed a couple times during the course of the movie.  Within 5 minutes, Elvis went from extremely wary of Kurt and his psychopathic tendencies to completely on board with a full-fledged maniac.  Then, without a word, back to thinking Kurt was completely in the wrong.  They were a couple of very confusing turns for his character, with little-to-no explanation for them.
My other main issue with the movie will be covered in Zombie Talk.

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed this movie, but there were enough problems with it that I can't really say that I liked it too much.  Some good scenes, for sure, but nothing really amazing.  Still, for a low-budget zombie movie, you could do a lot worse.

Rating: 2.5/5

Zombie Talk:
For the most part, the zombies seemed to be pretty standard Romero zombies.  They were slow, shambling creatures.  A bite from one of them was fatal, and would kill-and-reanimate you in a pretty short period of time (just a few minutes, if I remember correctly).  A shot to the brain would destroy them.  I believe decapitation would still leave the head alive, so only destroying the brain would eliminate the creature completely.  That's why Elvis' sledgehammer worked so well (provided he never got tired, which he never seemed to do), and that's also why Tweeter's machete worked so well, provided it was sharp (which it always was).
They acknowledged that the zombies were slow in this movie, which is not always done.  In one scene, they came across a large number of them in a warehouse.  Instead of trying to kill them all, they basically just ran through them, killing those that posed the biggest threat.
Here was my main problem.
Towards the end of the movie, a few of the zombies could run.  I was paying attention to the movie, and I don't seem to remember any explanation for this.  It was only some of Kurt's guys that were turned, so I thought, "Maybe the newer ones move faster," even though that really doesn't make any sense at all.  To further add to my confusion, a couple of Kurt's guys didn't move fast.  It was only 2 or 3 of them.  How they acquired the magical power of zombie-running, I'll never know.
Maybe I missed it.  But, even if I did, I doubt there's an explanation that makes any sense.  This is the first time I've seen a movie that switches up the rules for zombies during the actual movie.  I'm not a zombie snob: if you want running zombies in your movie, make the zombies run.  It certainly raises the level of stress.  But don't change your rules for zombies while the movie is in progress.

Mama

Description from Netflix:
Two girls left to fend for themselves in the forest for five lonely years after the death of their mother find refuge in the home of their uncle.  But it soon becomes clear that the girls have not arrived alone in this woodsy supernatural thriller.

Notable actors: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

My thoughts:
I had wanted to see this as soon as it came out, but fate and timing did not allow it.  Thankfully, I was able to catch a matinee yesterday.
And I loved it.
It had the same kind of feel as The Orphanage (I know that's kind of a lazy comparison, seeing as how Del Toro has ties to both of them, but it doesn't mean that it's not accurate).  It had a great atmosphere throughout the entire film.  They really set the feeling of dread and overwhelming creepiness up pretty early, and it cast a shadow over the rest of the film.  Even in the slow moments, I couldn't help but feel a little tense.  They used a lot of wide shots, so I was always looking over the shoulder of the characters.  Looking for any movement at all.

It was a beautifully creepy movie, which is why the comparison to The Orphanage is so accurate.  Both movies are overwhelmingly eerie.  But, where The Orphanage only goes so far as to be "creepy", Mama hits the "downright scary" button a few times.  The Orphanage had some tense and scary moments, but nothing came close to the terror that Mama slung around.

I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped a few times during this movie.  There were times when I knew something was coming, and I still jumped.  And yet, I never felt that any of jumps were cheap scares.  They worked hard for them, and they delivered.  That's no easy feat.

The acting was terrific.  It's no surprise that Jessica Chastain was fantastic.  With as great as she is, it's kind of amazing that she's just now breaking out (she was also terrific in Lawless and Zero Dark Thirty).

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones) was also great, though his role was a bit more limited than I thought it would be.

The real surprise here were the kids.  This movie relied heavily on them, and they pulled through.  They were amazing.  Megan Charpentier (Victoria) was outstanding.  She had an especially complex character to play, and she did a terrific job.  She was torn between her old life (with Mama) and her new life (with Annabel & Lucas).  She had to run a gauntlet of emotions, and she nailed all of them.
Even the actress who played young Victoria (Morgan McGarry) was terrific.  An adorable little kid.  And her dad was going to kill her.  Some people, man...

Isabelle Nelisse (Lilly) was also terrific.  Even though she had slightly less of a character (a feral child who never really seemed to grasp the concept of the real world), she was still terrific.  She had a simple innocence to her, and she played it perfectly.  Even with the overwhelming creepiness, there were still a lot of playful moments with Mama, and Lilly was at the heart of those.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the one massive complaint I've heard about this movie: the CGI of Mama. It's quite possible that I had heard so many negative comments about it that my expectations were lowered so far that the actual CGI couldn't possibly be as bad as my mind had made it out to be.
It could also be that I have recently made peace with CGI.  My deal with CGI is this: as long as the movie is good, I don't really care if the CGI isn't amazing.  I refuse to let bad CGI kill a good movie for me.  Now, if it's a bad movie with bad CGI, all bets are off.  But less-than-stellar CGI is not a deal breaker for me.
Also, I really don't think the CGI was that bad.  Not enough to distract from the creepiness of the movie, anyway.

This has nothing to do with CGI, but I really love this shot

One small fact before I end this review.  The part of Mama was played by an actor by the name of Javier Botet.  He is a horrifying man.  All those weird, disjointed stances Mama took?  All Botet.  Which is simultaneously amazing and horrifying.  (For the record, Botet also played the role of Nina Medeiros in all of the [Rec] movies.)

Overall, I really, really loved this movie.  As I mentioned before, it has a great atmosphere, which gives the entire film a creepiness that never lets up.  I really loved everything about this movie.  I'm already looking forward to watching it again when it comes out on DVD.  This could easily become my favorite movie of the year.

I have a handful of questions about the ending of the movie, and the fallout that would occur.  I don't want to bring them up here, as they would include a lot of spoilers, none of which I necessarily want to bring up here.  Very soon, I'll either do a post about the fallout from certain horror movies (using Zombie's Halloween 1 & 2 as a guide), or start up a discussion blog filled with spoilers (I doubt this will happen, as I doubt enough people read this blog to necessitate another one starting up).  If anyone has a preference, leave a comment.

Rating: 5/5

I can't end this review without a few words about Jessica Chastain's character, Annabel.  Her character goes through a pretty big transformation as well: from a punk-rocker who cheers when she finds out she's not pregnant to a protective and loving mother for Victoria and Lilly.  (Even her wardrobe changed: from low-cut tank-tops to, eventually, a turtleneck sweater.)
It is her punk-rocker side that I want to point out.  They spent a little bit of time on it, and it kind of made me laugh.  My favorite part was when her and Lucas were trying to get custody of the kids.  Part of the case against them featured the statement, "Annabel is in a band."  Granted, the point was more, "how can they support these kids when they don't make any money?", but it sounded more like, "She can't take care of these kids...she plays the devil's music!"

Here are a few pictures showing her transformation (and, again, featuring some of the wide shots this film used).