If the movies have taught us anything, it’s that when you’re lost in the wilderness, an abandoned cabin in the woods may not be the life-sustaining shelter it seems.
In the opening sequence of Mama, a car accident leaves Jeffrey (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his daughters stranded in the snow. They happen upon just such a cabin, and he eagerly takes them inside and starts a fire. But apparently he’s never seen a slasher pic, so he’s unprepared for the inevitable danger — and of course he’s murdered in due time by the spirit who lives in the cabin’s walls.
Meet “Mama,” who raises Jeffrey’s girls, Victoria and Lilly, as near-feral beasts. They’ll be recovered five years later through the continued search efforts of Lucas, Jeffrey’s identical twin brother. Lucas and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), take on the task of caring for the barely verbal children, who hide under beds and skitter around the room like human ghost crabs fleeing a flashlight on the beach.
They’re aided by a psychologist, Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), who’s ostensibly there to help ease the girls’ reassimilation into polite society. Given the girls’ stunted development, that wouldn’t be an easy task even with experienced, willing parents — and Annabel, reluctant to give up some distance to go to connect with her maternal instincts. Things are also complicated by the fact that Mama has followed the girls back to civilization, and is jealous of the competition.
When he took the girls into Mama’s lair, Jeffrey may have ignored the storytelling conventions at play, but audiences will recognize them immediately — and they go far beyond just the cabin in the woods. First-time feature director Andres Muschietti stuffs a host of traditions from cinema and folklore into Mama and sets the blender to liquefy.