Goodnight Mommy – Just Stick To The Original [REVIEW]

Goodnight Mommy is one of my favorite foreign horror films. It’s up there with Martyrs. If you haven’t seen either, do yourself a favor and go watch them.

The original film tells the story of two twin boys who do everything together, from collecting beetles to feeding stray cats. One day, they welcome their mother home after her reconstructive surgery. However, with her face wrapped in bandages, and her demeanor distant, the two grow suspicious of her identity.

The US version brought to us by Director Matt Sobel and writer Kyle Warren begins similarly and then takes off on its own path, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Goodnight Mommy Misses In The Mystery

While the 2014 film is shrouded in mystery and disturbing images from the beginning, this version takes its time in trying to build suspense. Sadly, it never does. The casting of Naomi Watts (King Kong) is a miss for me. It’s nothing to do with her acting, she’s fantastic. However, when the major mystery is trying to figure out if she is in fact their mother and they cast someone as well knowns as she is it doesn’t matter if she’s not using her natural accent – she sounds like Naomi Watts.

On top of the casting, the film views like they were trying to be anything but the original. The cinematography takes a 180 going from a dark, ominous feel, to bright and dingy. About halfway through the film, you realize that they are going to be taking a hard left turn from the original storyline-wise. I understand wanting to make a remake of your own. However, when you stray so far from the source material the outcome needs to be just as good if not better. Sadly, that didn’t happen here. Instead, we get a predictable film with zero tension, that has good acting.

In the end, Goodnight Mommy doesn’t feel like a horror film or even a thriller. Somehow we are left with an odd family drama that just misses the marks.

DOES GOODNIGHT MOMMY GET ANYTHING RIGHT?

While the ending is incredibly predictable, the film does a good job of explaining everything. I didn’t find myself asking any questions or being confused. Which doesn’t always happen.

The twin actors, Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti do a fantastic job in the film. It’s hard to find talent that can handle roles like this so young, And the brothers absolutely nail it.

Goodnight Mommy is launching globally on Prime Video on September 16th, 2022. 

When twin brothers (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) arrive at their mother’s (Naomi Watts) country home to discover her face covered in bandages—the result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery—they immediately sense that something doesn’t add up. She sets strange new house rules, smokes in her bathroom, and secretly rips up a drawing they gave her. Things their loving mother would never do. As her behavior grows increasingly bizarre and erratic, a horrifying thought takes root in the boys’ minds. The sinking suspicion that the woman beneath the gauze, who’s making their food and sleeping in the next room, isn’t their mother at all.  

Official Synopsis

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