Goodnight Mommy

Goodnight Mommy probably takes the cake for the year’s most overrated horror film. It’s a movie with a twist that I spotted (without even knowing there was a twist) within the first six or seven minutes. It was so obvious, I kept thinking the twist had to have a twist. But it never did. This is the kind of movie that gets taken far too seriously based on three factors — it’s slow, it’s deeply unpleasant, it’s in a foreign language. (The cultural inferiority complex of the English-speaking world continues unabated.) It’s kind of the love child of Michael Haneke and Eli Roth, meaning that it’s basically arty torture-porn, but made on tranquilizers. I suppose what it most resembles is Robert Mulligan’s The Other (1972), another slow-burn thriller that never thrills (but which has mystifyingly become some kind of cult classic).

Now, understand that when I say I don’t think much of this film, I am not saying that it is poorly made — apart from the twist, which I just find inept. On the contrary, at least on a technical basis, Goodnight Mommy is very well done. There are, I grant you, things that might be better left unasked — like the whole idea of a boy and his terrarium of large cockroaches. Well, who knows what they get up to in rural Austria? This is, however, a nicely produced, good-looking — in its minimalist way — movie. I also cannot deny that it has more than its fair share of things to make your squirm. Whether that is the same thing as scaring you is a personal call. It’s really not that hard to make an audience go, “Ick!” — just show them something unpleasant or repellent. But is that really inducing fear or merely revulsion? There’s a big difference between making an audience cringe and making it scream.

The premise is very simple, if deliberately vague. You have a mother (Susanne Wuest) recovering from some kind of surgery that leaves her in mummy-like bandages. There are cryptic references in phone conversation to an accident, but this is misdirection. She’s holed up in this upscale and featureless country house with her twin sons Lukas (Lukas Schwarz) and Elias (Elias Schwarz). The situation is obviously tense and, of course, not what it seems. The problem with discussing this in any detail is that it inevitably will tip the movie’s hand. And, since I know one person who was completely surprised by the Big Reveal, I’m stepping aside. I can say — the trailer certainly does — that the boys become convinced that mama isn’t really mama under those bandages, but some kind of impostor, and they’re determined to discover the truth. The means to this become — let us say — rather drastic and sadistic.

This is essentially a chamber piece. It’s almost entirely the three characters, the roaches and a quickly defunct cat (that’s not a spoiler, since it’s immediately obvious that the kitty isn’t going to make it to the last reel — at least not in mobile form). Any others we see are either for atmosphere or to keep the plot moving. The biggest problem — at least for me — is that I never even briefly cared what happened to anyone. I was appalled by some of the things that happened, but that wasn’t due to liking the characters. Bear in mind, I am in the minority on this one. A lot of people seem to think Goodnight Mommy is some kind of masterpiece. I don’t get that, but others may. Rated R for disturbing violent content and some nudity.