Mama (2013)

"Build it and they will come." Field of Dreams (1989)

Ghost  stories are nothing new. Hell, even Shakespeare used ghosts. He used witches, too, but that’s another blog. Sometimes they’re humorous as in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Sometimes they’re romantic as in…well…Ghost (which by
  the way is now a musical…oy)…or Truly, Madly, Deeply. The possible possession of the body by an outside force is a commonly held belief. Spirit possession exists in Christian, Buddhist, Haitain Vodou, and Wiccan belief systems. It taps into our fear of losing autonomy.

Whether we’re possessed by ghosts, demons, or aliens, we fear a loss of control. Whether they stick around after death to guide the living or give us messages like, “Build it and they will come” – we all enjoy a good ghost story. But we’re here today to talk about the movie Mama.

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This Dad right before he tries to shoot his daughter in the back of the head.

I put Mama on the list for several reasons. First, it’s a good story because the ghost is a complex character. Second, because I didn’t really understand quite why this movie crept me out so  much. Upon watching this chiller again, something struck me that hadn’t hit me before. In one of the opening scenes in the movie, a father intending to kill his own daughters is stopped by a ghost in a violent, ultimately fatal way. We, the viewers, are okay with that because unlike some brats in the world, this child is sweet, obedient, and caring of both her father’s feelings and her sister. But my thought this second time around was, “Hold up! Since when can a ghost kill somebody?” I mean I’ve seen movies where a ghost possess someone to do harm to themselves, or scares someone so badly they harm themselves trying to get away…or even possess someone in a séance and give them information through a medium that leads them to harm, but other than a poltergeist throwing things around, I couldn’t remember seeing another movie where a ghost straight up …well… ghosts somebody directly and externally…not through possession.

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Mama's a dark ghost, but she's the children's guardian. Hmmm...

I’m sure it’s happened in narrative, and I know tons of demon possession movies, but ghosts? So I dug for bout five minutes online (for me, that’s considered exhaustive research) and saw lots of hogwash about ghosts and their abilities. It permeates pretty much every culture. But they all seem to be benign. Of
course there were the stories of ghosts who were black being bad. Hmmm, imagine!
In one article there was the brilliant analysis of black ghosts=bad, white or  transparent ghosts=good, and get this…are you ready…grey ghosts can be good or  bad! I hope tax dollars aren’t funding this research. But again, can a ghost outright kill someone? I had to look into this a little more.

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I found a long list of ghost movies and looking at the list made me realize two
things…1) Ghosts killing people is not that common and 2) I’ve watched way too
many ghost flicks.

She's way toooooo happy to see Mama!

The reason Mama is such a complex character is that though she is ugly and scary, she’s actually protecting the little girls. She’s already saved them from a father who tried to kill them; she’s looked after them in isolation for five years as well. So why don’t we give her a break? As the story unfolds, we see
Mama’s story and how she was a victim herself. We see her haunting these girls
is actually a testament to mother love which also saves one of the girls in the end. In reality she’s more a guardian angel, albeit a dark one. But her appearance doesn’t seem to bother the children. It’s both their innocence and vulnerability that cause them not only to rely on Mama, but to accept her as well.

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Dad's ghost in a dream.

There are actually two ghosts in this film, Mama and the girl’s father that she kills. He appears in his brother’s dream to warn him to “Save them” meaning his girls from Mama. It’s such an ambiguous message, after all weren’t they saved from him? Can he be a reliable source of information? He’s kind of like the ghost of Hamlet’s father who tells Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing his uncle. Hamlet, at one point, realizes that this might be a malicious ghost trying to   get him to do something that will damn his soul. In essence, the father ghost IS malicious seeing as he is trying, from the grave, to get his girls away from their only source of protection-supernatural though she may be. It’s an effective narrative
touch.

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The ghost of Hamlet's father in Act 1.

The first time Annabel sees Mama.

Up until now, ghosts as threats were easy for many of us to dismiss. We fancy that we have the fortitude to repel any possession attempts as well as ignore their voices in our heads. But Mama showed us a world where a determined enough ghost can kill us. Without even realizing it at the time….this scared the bejesus out of me (and yes…bejesus is an actual word. I looked it up!).

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Guillermo del Toro

Please, leave a comment if you can think of another ghost movie where the ghost
physically kills someone. I know they do in The Grudge, but we don’t really see it. Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to change the freakin’ rules.