Mama is a horror movie that follows two sisters who vanish into the woods on the day their parents die, when they where rediscovered they may not fit in for the normal word anymore.
By splitting the action between several different characters and locations, the plot dissipates the suspense and lacks focus, as if it has been bolted together from disparate, ill-fitting pieces.
[The movie] has more integrity than its creepshow peers. The story basically comes down to a dead-looking woman who doesn't want to be a mother fighting for parental custody against a long-dead woman who does. (Grad students, start your theses.)
While Del Toro uses fantasy elements to reach deeper into childhood fear (see Pan's Labyrinth), Mama has flashes of terror then sets back to be, at best, routine.
The problem is that [the] movie barely meets the minimum generic requirements, and thus comes off as pretentious for presuming to hover so airily above them.
