BARE BONES: GOODNIGHT MOMMY

GOODNIGHT MOMMY (2014)

Filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala prove that a movie can be both disturbing and boring with this unsettling but dull thriller. After having their mom (Susanne Wuest) returned home from plastic surgery after an accident, weird twins Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) start to become convinced that the woman, now in their secluded home, is not their real mother. With her increasingly odd behavior, the twins resort to some very disturbing actions to get the truth out of her.

A lot of positive buzz has surrounded this arty Austrian horror flick, but to me it was kinda dull, with it quite obvious that the mom was not the only person in the house who was suspect. After about an hour of dull sequences with the twins building their suspicions, the film then degenerates into a routine and cruel torture show in it’s last act, as the boys try to coax a confession out of the woman they refuse to believe is their mom. Some of it was hard to watch, but that doesn’t necessarily make it involving, as you never really come to like or get to know any of the characters from the weird boys to their bitchy mom. This leads to us keeping an emotional detachment, despite being appalled by what’s happening and we never really get invested in the story. We should have sympathized with either the boys or the mom, but they are creepy and she seemed too self-absorbed to be likable. There is a Sixth Sense-ish finale, which really didn’t come as a complete surprise, as there was a strong feeling something of that nature was coming. It is far too obvious from the beginning that something is being kept from us and that Franz and Fiala were going to go all M. Night Shyamalan at some point. Definitely did not live up to the hype and praise.

-MonsterZero NJ