Mama (1 Viewer)

[Michael Elliott]

I know when you say PG-13 horror film all sorts of fans goes crazy but like THE POSSESSION this here turned out to be pretty effective. The movie managed to have a dark atmosphere and some very creepy moments but I think it's greatest thing was the lead performance by Jessica Chastain and the story. I'm not going to spoil anything but the actual story here was pretty effective and smart but the lead performance was just wonderful and something rare in a horror film. I really liked that they tried to take a few different approaches compared to what we typically see in this type of film. Usually we have loving people doing loving things on a lovely, bright sunny day but that's not the case here. Again, I'm not going to spoil anything but I like how they wrote the Chastain character and how she doesn't want anything to do with the situation or the kids. The only weak spot was most of the ending, although the pay off is actually good and showed some balls. The other weak thing was the CGI. Look, if you can't come up with good CGI then I say don't use it at all because the spirit here simply wasn't scary. It did way too many unrealistic things to be scary and quite often it killed the tension leading up to it. Still, I think fans of the genre or Chastain should enjoy it. The director's short film that this is based on is available online but I'll try to get to it later. :star::star::star: (out of 4)

 

[TravisR]

I saw it this morning and dug it. I'm not a huge fan of ghost stories but this one was solid and fans of that subgenre should enjoy it. I liked the characters and the performances (even the kids) were good. As for the PG-13 rating, I can't imagine the movie being any better if they had had the ability to say 'fuck' more often and there was no need for graphic violence so this movie is an example of where a PG-13 works fine. My only real complaint would be that the CG wasn't very good. It's a ghost so I guess you can say that it can have an odd or unreal look to it but it just looked like bad CG more than anything else. Fortunately, many of the times that you see the ghost, you just get a glimpse or it's in the background and those shots work much better than toward the end of the movie when you see it in full-on.

 

[Brett_M]

Caught this yesterday on BD. I liked it a lot. I'll watch anything with Jessica Chastain. It was creepy and atmospheric. Worth a look for fans of Chastain or ghost flicks. ***/****

 

[Quentin]

It's a quality horror movie with a smart story and good performances. PG-13 is totally fine - still real scary.