From Saw To Frankenweenie To What are we doing in the shadows, the world is full of amazing horror movies that started out as short films. And it’s always good to know that our favorite creepy movie is based on a short film, especially when that short film is easily available to watch online. Sometimes we may even discover something scarier than what we originally saw. The short film that served as the basis for David F. SandbergX lights out, for example, is much scarier than the feature it inspired. The same can be said about MotherArgentine short film Andy Muschietti based on his 2013 film Mother.
He is currently best known for his work on This dilogy and about the upcoming Flash The film, Muschietti made the first Hollywood buzz with this little horror film that, unsurprisingly, is about children being haunted by an otherworldly being. movie stars Jessica Chastain as Annabelle, Victoria’s adoptive mother (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse), two wild children who return to civilization, taking some of the wilderness with them. The film tells about Annabelle, her husband Lucas (Nikolai Coster-Waldau) and psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfus (Daniel Cash) as they try to figure out who this strange figure the girls call “mom” is. However, initially the plot Mother-or Mother— was much easier. And perhaps it was its simplicity that made up for a much more sinister film.
What is “Mom” about?
Mother Pretty basic horror movie. Its story begins with Father Geoffrey Desange (also played by Coster-Waldau) killing his wife and running away with his young daughters to a cabin in the woods. Having just lost his job or his savings (not made clear in the film) in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, he plans to kill three-year-old Victoria and one-year-old Lilly before taking his own life. However, his plan is thwarted by a strange spirit with flying hair and twisted limbs, who overwhelms him before he can harm the girls.
Over the next five years, this spirit, whom Lilly and Victoria began to call Mom (Javier Botet), takes care of Desange’s children, feeds them cherries and sings them lullabies. Meanwhile, in the big city, Jeffrey’s brother Lucas spends all his money trying to find his missing nieces. He is supported in his efforts by his girlfriend Annabelle, the lead singer of a rock band with no interest in becoming a mother. But Annabelle’s life changes dramatically when one of Lucas’ hired searchers finds Lilly and Victoria hiding in their cabin in the woods.
The girls are returned to live with Lucas and Annabelle, but their adjustment is far from easy. After spending their formative years living like animals, Lilly and Victoria struggle to trust other people, speak the right sentences, and even walk on only two legs. Lilly, in particular, has a hard time adjusting to her new reality. And the fact that the girls seem to have brought this creature they call Mom with them makes things even more complicated. After all, the mom may take care of the girls, but she’s also a jealous spirit who doesn’t like others who try to undermine her authority.
Annabelle’s problems with Mom really begin when the spirit, in a fit of rage, pushes Lucas down the stairs, causing him to fall into a coma. Forced to take care of Victoria and Lilly alone, Annabelle suffers from strange phenomena she cannot bring herself to explain: shadows lurking in the corners of her house, strange voices blaring through the pipes, black mold appearing on her walls. Meanwhile, the girls’ psychiatrist, Dr. Dreyfus, begins to suspect that Mom may actually be a separate entity, and not a secondary personality designed by Victoria as a survival mechanism, as he initially believed. Alas, before he can share his theories with Lucas and Annabelle, the doctor meets his fate through his mom.
Confused and all alone, Annabelle steals Dr. Dreyfus’s notes and laptop in hopes of discovering the truth about what is happening to Lilly and Victoria. She discovers that Mom is actually the spirit of a mentally ill woman named Edith Brennan who died in the 1800s. Once in the orphanage, Edith gave birth to a child, and the child was taken away from her. However, she managed to escape and take the child. Pursued by the local authorities, Edith ran to the rock and jumped into the lake with the baby in her arms. But when Edith fell into the water, she did not realize that her child was caught on a tree branch. And so her spirit roamed the woods for decades, wondering where her child might be. When she ran into Lilly and Victoria, she imprinted on the two children, believing them to be her own.
Possessing the body of Edith’s baby, found by Dr. Dreyfus, Annabelle tries to get her mother to give up the girls, but to no avail. Mom grabs her kids again and tries to jump off the very rock where she committed suicide. However, Victoria refuses to go with her, choosing to stay with Annabelle and Lucas. The film ends somewhat unsatisfactorily with Mom jumping off a cliff with Lilly in her arms.
Mom is the sequel to Andy Muschietti’s short film.
As we mentioned earlier, expanding a short film of a few minutes into a full movie is not unheard of. However, Mother certainly does wonders with his source material. This is because Muschietti’s original 2008 short film, Mother (available on YouTube with intro Guillermo del Toro) lasts only two and a half minutes. Mother it’s not so much a movie as it’s a single scene. There are two girls in it, Lily (Victoria Harris) and Victoria (Bertha Ros) run around the house, looking for shelter, for mom (Irma Monroig) comes. When Lily locks herself in the room, leaving Victoria outside (a scene that was included in the 2013 film), the terrifying, distorted face of her mother is revealed to the audience.
This short creepy scene caught the attention of del Toro, who was the film’s executive producer. director behind Pan’s Labyrinth And Pinocchio known for discovering horror gems in Latin America, lending his name to films such as Guillem Morales’ Los Ojos de Julia And J. A. BayonaX Orphanage. So, Muschietti got the push he needed to turn his horrific scene into a horrific film. But this Mother truly deserving of the title terrifying? Sure, there are some good screamers in the movie, but these aren’t the scariest hours.
Unlike a short film that creates an aura of horror with its atmosphere, mysterious plot and unexpected ending, Mother can often feel bloated, with too many characters and too many appearances of his titular spirit for his presence to really work as a fear factor. The tense atmosphere is replaced with a series of blue, green and yellow filters that make the horror movie look very simple. We all know that Muschietti can do better. He did it in the first chapter Thisand he did it in his 2008 Mother Also.
With 57 points on Metacritic, Mother not without their fans. However, many critics and regular moviegoers were quick to point out the film’s shortcomings. No matter which team you belong to, this is definitely worth a look. Mother. Even if you don’t find it better than the movie version, this is a great lesson on how to induce fear in just one scene and less than three minutes.
Source: Collider
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