logicproreviews
I first saw Mamá on YouTube back in 2013 and I can remember having trouble sleeping afterwards. This is atmospheric, scary and in your face. The images you see here will stay in your head no matter what. There's no going back after watching this. Three minutes is the perfect length for this little horror gem.This is far greater than the feature that followed. I have revisited it many times and when you know the outcome, the tension is palpable.Highly recommended. Tip: watch it late at night and alone under a blanket with the lights turned off.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Mamá" is a short film by writer and director Andrés Muschietti and it runs for 3 minutes only and that already includes titles and about 25 seconds at the start before th film really starts. We see a girl move into her sister's room to tell her that her mother has returned. I quite liked the whole atmosphere in this one and the camera work was nicely done too and added a lot to the scare factor of this film. The second time that Mamá moves to the camera was a bit repetitive already still I have to admit. And I really did not understand why the sister would not let the other sister into the room before she was possessed. Anyway, still an okay short film and worth a watch for horror film fans. This short film was the basis of a full feature movie starring Jessica Chastain that Muschietti made 5 years later and which became quite popular. Unluckily for the three girls in here, they were not recast for that one. Still, they are doing a fine job here and all in all, I think the positive outweighs the negative. Recommended.
TxMike
I saw this film short as an "extra" on the DVD for the feature length movie of the same name, by the same writers. The extra, with Del Toro's introductory comments, is about 5 minutes. The short film itself is right at 3 minutes.It's really only an idea, actually. We see two small girls in a large, two-story house. The atmosphere is spooky. Then we see the ghost figure "Mama" rushing towards the girls as they run up the stairs to safety. Hopefully.Del Toro came across this short and was impressed enough to contact the writers, a brother and sister team, to see if they might write a feature length film on the same theme.And they did, the 1 hour 40 minute horror movie "Mama." Which I enjoyed, BTW, even though it is not a genre that I am usually drawn to.
Michael_Elliott
Mama (2008) *** (out of 4) Andres Muschietti's three-minute short is what helped get his 2013 film made. Fans of that film (whick I'm one of) will certainly want to watch this just to compare how the sequence here looked in the feature. What we basically have is two little girls walking around their house when they notice mama and try to get away from her. This scene was actually redone in the feature to a very good effect and considering this thing just lasts three-minutes there's really no reason to try and treat it the same as a feature. With that said, I was actually quite impressed with this short as the director at least managed to build up some tension and the pay-off was nice. I will also admit that I actually liked mama from this short better than the feature, which was good but often times relied on too much CGI. Both Victoria Harris and Berta Ros are good as the children.
AD
