The Ü™
Permabanned
- Joined
- May 26, 2007
- Messages
- 11,910
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
- Enneagram
- 5w6
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/sx
Saw this movie today and decided to create a new thread to keep it separate from the Last Stand thread. (And maybe we'll actually discuss The Last Stand here.)
This film was executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro, which means, he had no involvement in the film whatsoever aside from his name in the "presents" credit instead of the more conventional "Universal Pictures presents" credit.
Speaking of being unconventional, it seems to have become a cliche that is particularly obnoxious in the horror genre, which makes Mama another worthy contender of a Rev'Ü™, because what seems to be happening with the ghost stories of today is that while they have strong atmosphere and genuine scares (yes, jump scares qualify), they sell it out for a twist ending after teasing us with a more conventional ending that would've ultimately worked better.
While the twist ending in this film isn't nearly as bad as some twist endings in similar movies (like The Woman in Black and Sinister, both quality scary movies until the epilogue with either a mediocre shocking ending or a mediocre happy-ish ending), it's really getting old. Being unconventional has become so annoyingly conventional now, and it's amazing how a five-minute final scene can subdue the impact of the rest of the film, perhaps because it tries too hard to be scary but ultimately fails. And with Mama, it defecates over what could've been a perfect ghost story. In its case, it wasn't scary, it was just dumb.
This film was executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro, which means, he had no involvement in the film whatsoever aside from his name in the "presents" credit instead of the more conventional "Universal Pictures presents" credit.
Speaking of being unconventional, it seems to have become a cliche that is particularly obnoxious in the horror genre, which makes Mama another worthy contender of a Rev'Ü™, because what seems to be happening with the ghost stories of today is that while they have strong atmosphere and genuine scares (yes, jump scares qualify), they sell it out for a twist ending after teasing us with a more conventional ending that would've ultimately worked better.
While the twist ending in this film isn't nearly as bad as some twist endings in similar movies (like The Woman in Black and Sinister, both quality scary movies until the epilogue with either a mediocre shocking ending or a mediocre happy-ish ending), it's really getting old. Being unconventional has become so annoyingly conventional now, and it's amazing how a five-minute final scene can subdue the impact of the rest of the film, perhaps because it tries too hard to be scary but ultimately fails. And with Mama, it defecates over what could've been a perfect ghost story. In its case, it wasn't scary, it was just dumb.