Goodnight Mommy

If a mother isn't being one, her own child would doubt her.

The Austrian thriller-drama, is going to contend with another nearly 100 movies from the different countries for the upcoming (2016) American Academy Awards. I hope it will make into the final shortlist and my wishes to the cast and the crew. A minimal cast movie, set in an isolated lake house where the 9 years old twin boys and their mother lives. After their mother returning from the major facial surgery, the brothers doubts is she's the same person. They have no choice, but have to go for an unusual route to find out the truth.

Initially it was very slow, but keeps accelerating since the beginning of the second half and it ends strongly. You have to be an open minded, that is very important especially for this movie. Try to understand what it delivers than what you want see. I mean prediction is okay, but don't assume in a wider aspect. The narration was so simple and you may think the end is so cliche, but the movie does not bother to provide a surprise. Before going to talk about the twist, you have clear a couple of things.

The first question you have to answer yourself is what is 'horror' mean to you. The demons? The ghosts? Other creepy creatures? The zombies? Possession and exorcism? Haunted places and objects? Imposter? You know 'terror' is also called 'horror', which is a very close to the 'thriller' than being an actual 'horror'. Different movies explain in a different way, but this movie is not that distinctive from those, except being unconventional in revealing the details related to the story and characters.

"I want you to repeat ten times that I'm your mother."

This film had a few diversions in the name of the genre. That is the reason why it failed to satisfy the horror fans, but so much better without mentioning that around. You have to be careful from the beginning itself, observing closely every scene. Because the storytelling commences with a hint within the first...

Less than I hoped it would be.

I went into this film spoiler free, knowing nothing more than the tag line. While it was well acted and well paced for the most part, the twist was heavy handed and obvious from early on. Maybe I would have liked this film more if there was more subtlety to it. A good film should still entertain if you know the twist or not, and for me, guessing it so early just hampered my enjoyment. The denouement was handled well, but the lead up let it down.