The pretty good horror movie Mama, with Jessica Chastain, can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering. It’s the story of two orphaned little girls who have survived in the forest for four years. When they are rescued, they are feral creatures who scurry about on four legs. They are sheltered at first in a research institute, and then in their uncle’s home. It turns out that, unbeknownst to the adult characters, the sisters were “parented” in the forest by a being who comes along with them.
Jessica Chastain brings an unexpectedly rich characterization to this genre film. She plays the uncle’s girlfriend, the tattooed bass player in a rock band, who didn’t sign up to parent two deeply troubled kids. She is apologetically non-maternal, but forced by circumstance to co-parent and then to single parent the girls. Ultimately, she has a face-off with a very jealous and very scary competitor.
The entire cast is excellent, especially Megan Charpentier as the older daughter and Daniel Kash as the ambitious scientist. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the scary bad guy in Headhunters, plays softer as both the girls’ decompensating dad and their compassionate uncle.
I’m generally not a fan of horror films and I especially loathe the gorefests that currently dominate the genre. But the Mama delivers the scares the old-fashioned way, with inventive characters, a sense of foreboding and a creepy and dangerous villain.
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