Filme Friday - Goodnight Mommy (2014)

This movie is creepy in the best way!  It's perfect for the month of October and just days before Halloween.  I love horror movies, so I've been excited about watching this film since I first heard about it.  I kept seeing articles calling the trailer disturbing and terrifying, which added to the intrigue.

It's an Austrian film with the title originally "Ich Seh Ich Seh", which translates to "I see, I see" in English.  This is a reference to the game "I Spy", where instead of "I spy with my little eye", German-speaking children say "Ich seh, ich seh, was du nicht siehst" (I see, I see, what you don't see).

Without giving too much away, a mother and her two sons, Lukas and Elias, live in a beautiful house in the country.  The film begins with the 9 year-old twins waiting for their mother to come home and when she does, her face is completely bandaged from surgery.  The boys notice that their mother is acting strangely, particularly that she is being strict and cruel, especially toward Lukas.  It doesn't take long before they wonder if this person whose face is hidden by bandaging is actually their mother.  They take matters into their own hands to determine the true identity of the woman in their home, which has terrifying consequences.

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I'm a horror junkie and this movie lived up to my standards for a quality film.  It had a great mix of psychological horror and gore.  There were a few scenes that had me cringing despite my normally strong stomach.  Those Madagascar hissing cockroaches...*shiver*

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I really don't want to say too much about the plot itself because I liked that the trailer didn't give much away at all.  The entire style is creepy and cute at the same time.  There's a bizarre innocence in the boys that only makes everything they do that much darker.  I also liked that actual twins were cast instead of using one actor for two characters.  Maybe I'm imagining it, but it really seemed to add something to the film.

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After the final scene, I went back and rewatched previous scenes.  Even though I anticipated the ending, I still missed things and I wasn't sure I quite understood what I saw.  There's actually a bit of debate over certain scenes in the movie, which is always fun.  Definitely a thought-provoking, eerie horror film.  It certainly doesn't do much to dispel the creepy reputation twins get from movies like The Shining.

German and Austria have plenty of well-known classic horror movies, but this film gives hope for the more modern ones as well.