Mama

The debut feature of director Andy Muschietti - expanding on his acclaimed 2008 short - has spooky atmosphere to spare even if the plot bears too many stretch marks. After a car crash, two little girls lost in the woods are sustained by a deranged ghost consumed with possessive motherly love. Rescued years later, they go to live with their father's brother (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain, the least convincing punk rocker ever) whose efforts to bond with the children are disrupted by the evil presence. "A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape" according to this lightweight, routine shocker. The cadaverous shape-shifter, CGI-augmented [Rec] actor Javier Botet, certainly looks the part, lurking under beds and in the closet. But there aren't enough scares beyond a few spectral rushes towards the camera and the final swerve into full-on Pan's Labyrinth territory for an unconvincing fairy-tale finale undercuts the primal terror once and for all.