Reading many of the previous reviews, mainly negative and not wrong about it, I feel the need to comment on certain aspects considered plot holes by some reviewers. Even though the movie goes downhill in its second half and notwithstanding the acting of Justin Long transforming the movie's dark tension into a black comedy, fair is to say the mother and her super powers actually make some sense. Here are a few points to consider:
1) what seemed to be a crackhead neighbourhood, turned out to be totally empty except for just one homeless man who figured out how to hide from the mother. Well, why was it empty? It wouldn't be crazy to assume that the mother attacked people and ate them. That's why she went out at night (not sure how she went out, though, given that the cellar window was stuck and the door didn't open from the inside). It's possible that she hunted the whole neighbourhood down and became a wendigo. In the usual folklore, wendigos are strong, taller than regular people, because of the power obtained by eating another human. That's why she wasn't frail or malnourished. Now how Frank survived and why the heavens he decided to live underground is a total mystery.
2) The homeless guy says that Frank has been impregnating women , then impregnating their spawn and so on for generations and that mother is a product of inbreeding. We see the repeating video teaching her how to take care of a baby. It appears that when the neighbourhood became empty he didn't have the initiative to kidnap other women in other districts so he preferred to make his own victims. Ok, so I guess he killed the baby boys. And perhaps fed the women with them?
3) Mother is afraid of Frank and she doesn't go near him. Frank can hardly move and seems to be bedridden so I wonder how he survived so far.
4) Mother loved Tess and Tess killed her anyway when she is showing her love and concern. That makes the barbarian being shot barbarically. Everyone is barbaric at some point except from Keith.
5) Keith's existence in the story is somehow irrelevant and is only there to distract the presumptions of what is going to happen. Given that the role was protagonized by Bill Skarsgard, this character whose presence in the house is irrelevant to the main plot, is certainly a disappointment.
6) If mother went out at night, how come she never kicked down the door to attack either Keith or Tess? There's no way she didn't hear them above and she clearly had the strength to kick the door down.
7) Why would Justin Long's character buy a house in that area, surrounded by dilapidated houses, with no value whatsoever? Who in his sane mind would consider that a smart investment? And how much did he really expect to get from it?
8) Also, the tunnels were powered, I suppose, by the electricity feeding the house. So when the house was empty and not rented, didn't they notice that there was power being consumed anyway?
9) Why was a male actor cast to be Mother? She looked like a man all the time and killed the atmosphere making it look ridiculous.
10) What was the point of the whole movie? I seem to have missed it.
1) what seemed to be a crackhead neighbourhood, turned out to be totally empty except for just one homeless man who figured out how to hide from the mother. Well, why was it empty? It wouldn't be crazy to assume that the mother attacked people and ate them. That's why she went out at night (not sure how she went out, though, given that the cellar window was stuck and the door didn't open from the inside). It's possible that she hunted the whole neighbourhood down and became a wendigo. In the usual folklore, wendigos are strong, taller than regular people, because of the power obtained by eating another human. That's why she wasn't frail or malnourished. Now how Frank survived and why the heavens he decided to live underground is a total mystery.
2) The homeless guy says that Frank has been impregnating women , then impregnating their spawn and so on for generations and that mother is a product of inbreeding. We see the repeating video teaching her how to take care of a baby. It appears that when the neighbourhood became empty he didn't have the initiative to kidnap other women in other districts so he preferred to make his own victims. Ok, so I guess he killed the baby boys. And perhaps fed the women with them?
3) Mother is afraid of Frank and she doesn't go near him. Frank can hardly move and seems to be bedridden so I wonder how he survived so far.
4) Mother loved Tess and Tess killed her anyway when she is showing her love and concern. That makes the barbarian being shot barbarically. Everyone is barbaric at some point except from Keith.
5) Keith's existence in the story is somehow irrelevant and is only there to distract the presumptions of what is going to happen. Given that the role was protagonized by Bill Skarsgard, this character whose presence in the house is irrelevant to the main plot, is certainly a disappointment.
6) If mother went out at night, how come she never kicked down the door to attack either Keith or Tess? There's no way she didn't hear them above and she clearly had the strength to kick the door down.
7) Why would Justin Long's character buy a house in that area, surrounded by dilapidated houses, with no value whatsoever? Who in his sane mind would consider that a smart investment? And how much did he really expect to get from it?
8) Also, the tunnels were powered, I suppose, by the electricity feeding the house. So when the house was empty and not rented, didn't they notice that there was power being consumed anyway?
9) Why was a male actor cast to be Mother? She looked like a man all the time and killed the atmosphere making it look ridiculous.
10) What was the point of the whole movie? I seem to have missed it.