(Streamed via Prime)
If you’ve already seen directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s Goodnight Mommy, you probably know where this gratuitous, yet sporadically effective Hollywood remake is going. Since you’re likely to know the twist before it happens, you can amuse yourself by seeing just how director Matt Sobel has updated it for American audiences. Even though it has been noticeably watered down, I still think I enjoyed it more than the original, mostly thanks to Naomi Watts’ performance.
Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nicholas Crovetti) go to live with their movie star mom (Watts) in the middle of nowhere. She had a surgical procedure done on her face, so she has to walk around the house wearing a scary white mask. The kids are subject to her increasingly erratic behavior and slowly begin to suspect that it might not be their mother under the mask.
This is a good role for Watts, who is quickly changing gears from Hollywood It Girl to Direct to DVD Schlock Queen. It’s a fun performance and she gets to act a little gonzo, as the anonymity of the mask allows her to cut loose when needed. I don’t know many actresses that could’ve pulled off a role like this (or who would’ve wanted to), but Watts certainly goes for it. (There are times she looks like a female version of Diabolik… except in a negligee.) There’s a particularly unsettling scene where she does a sexy dance in front of a mirror unaware one of her kids is watching.
It may lack the nasty edge the original had, but it’s more straightforward and better paced, and benefits from Watts’ performance. There’s also some decent horror imagery here and there, although it usually turns into one of those irritating “It was all a dream” scenarios. It’s not great, but I liked it better than the original. It’s certainly much better than Watts’ other Hollywood remake of a foreign language horror flick, the overrated The Ring (or even Funny Games, for that matter).
If you’d like to know my thoughts on the original Goodnight Mommy, check out my book, The Bloody Book of Horror: The Bloody Book of Horror: Lovell, Mitch: 9781542566629: Amazon.com: Books
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