Goodnight Mommy (2014)

She's so different'

Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

Starring: Susanne Wuest, Elias Schwarz, Luka Schwarz

Released: 30th August 2014 (Venice)

Box Office: $2.2M





Concept

Lukas and Elias are just young twins living in the countryside, enjoying life and collecting insects and just having fun and mischief. Their mother has been away for a small while, she has had to have facial surgery and we as the audience do not know about her incident. Due to the surgery her face is completely bandaged up. A sight unsettling to her young boys.
   It isn't until she makes strange demands such as constant silence and the blinds remaining closed even in summer when the boys start feeling she's acting weird. Then when after acting disobediently she lashes out at Elias and begins to physically attack him and forbid him from talking to Lukas is when the boys realise she isn't all she seems to be.
   Now, trapped in the countryside in the middle of nowhere they are determined to get to the bottom of this, is she their mother? Or is she some intruder that has come to replace her and make their lives miserable? 

Review

Talk about a film that is controversial. Child abuse and torturing loved ones? I'm surprised many people didn't lose it when this film was released. Goodnight Mommy is a Austrian film and an enjoyable one at that. You really get that sense of childhood fun and freedom and the dullness of being told what to do by parents.
   The film is based upon what they call Capgras Delusion, which is a disorder when an individual believes that a friend or family member has been replaced by 'an impostor'. The sound quality in this film is crisp and really places you into the atmosphere of the greenery with a beautiful house. The directors clearly made the sounds sound excellent.
   There is a lack of music in this film and it adds to the subtlety of the silence imposed, and it's an unsettling silence at times. If you're looking for an all out gore fest it's not here. It's a slow burning horror designed to scare with being in that situation wondering if a loved one is not all they seem, and the vulnerability of youth.

https://twitter.com/HorrorsGems

https://twitter.com/HorrorsGems

Stay Horrific!