Mama

Directed by Andy Muschietti

(PG-13)

**

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Not even a clumsily executed horror film can bring Jessica Chastain down, said Mary Pols in Time. Favored to take home an Oscar for her performance in Zero Dark Thirty, Chastain has seized on the chance to play against type in this genre flick and steered home a minor mid-winter hit. Horror “rarely gets much better than Mama,” said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. Chastain plays a tattooed rock guitarist who finds herself sharing a home with two feral young sisters, and all three are handcuffed to a story that suffers major lapses in logic. But the film also offers “pictorial beauty, an atmosphere throbbing with dread, and actors so good that you don’t want anyone to take an ax to them.” You’ll also believe that those same wild girls are being watched over by an angry ghost named Mama, said Tom Russo in The Boston Globe. Given the strong setup, “the frustration is how much the movie leans on made-you-jump scares” to arrive at its finish line. Even the frightening spirit might tug at your heart, but we’d “feel the pull more if we weren’t so beat from indulging the tired stuff.”