Goodnight Mommy

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Goodnight Mommy
Starring Susanne Wuest, Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz
Directed by Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz

The Story:
After undergoing cosmetic surgery, Mother (Susanne Wuest) comes to her isolated home, where her young twin sons Elias (Elias Schwarz) and Lukas (Lukas Schwarz) are eagerly awaiting her arrival.  However, when she comes home, she's not the Mother they remember.  She's mean, irritated, cold, distant, and full of rage.  This leads the twins to believe that this isn't their real Mother, but an impostor, and they will stop at nothing to find out the truth.

The Synopsis:
"Goodnight Mommy" is an Austrian film that is full of poetic imagery to be considered just another horror film.  Unfortunately, this imagery goes out the window in the last half, and it becomes another cut-and-paste philosophy of torture porn franchises such as "Saw" and "Hostel," that take away from the almost other-worldly feel of the film and brings it slamming down back to earth with a convoluted "twist" you saw within the first ten minutes of the film, and degrading it to a typical torture movie, but only this time it's kids doing the torturing.

This is a sad thing, because the concept seemed so original and unique at its premise.  A mother, unnamed, goes to get plastic surgery, while her twin ten year old sons remain alone at a house that's exclusively out in the middle of nowhere.  They only have one another to lean on, as their Mother has come back a seemingly different, more mean, person.  It could've gone to a great unknown mystery to be unraveled, or even something completely supernatural and unique, but after an hour of a slow-burn psychological drama, it turns to torture, obvious revelations, and a very unsatisfactory ending.

Typically I love foreign horror films, because they go into topics most American films don't ("Martyrs," "Inside," "Pan's Labyrinth," and "The Orphanage" immediately come to mind), and I was hoping "Goodnight Mommy" would follow that tradition.  Unfortunately, it didn't, and left what could've been another masterclass horror film to just another mundane tale.

Still, those twin actors gave amazing performances for being so young.  So...that's a plus.

The Summary:
"Goodnight Mommy" shows what happens when you begin with an intriguing tale, and then systematically unravel it to produce a traditional cookie cutter horror.

The Score: B-

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