Twin boys move to a new home with their mother after she has face changing cosmetic surgery, but under her bandages is someone the children don't recognize.
A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post-revolution, war-torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious evil begins to haunt their home.
Director:
Babak Anvari
Stars:
Narges Rashidi,
Avin Manshadi,
Bobby Naderi
A father and son, both coroners, are pulled into a complex mystery while attempting to identify the body of a young woman, who was apparently harboring dark secrets.
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend.
When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.
Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds a box of super 8 home movies that suggest the murder he is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s.
Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son. Then a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
Director:
Trey Edward Shults
Stars:
Joel Edgerton,
Christopher Abbott,
Carmen Ejogo
In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.
In the heat of the summer, a lonesome house in the countryside between woods and corn fields, lives nine-year-old twin brothers who are waiting for their mother. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before. The children start to doubt that this woman is actually their mother. It emerges an existential struggle for identity and fundamental trust.Written by
Ulrich Seidl Film
Susanne Wuest lived alone for three months to prepare for the role, often completely swaddling herself in bandages. She also kept two pet cockroaches. See more »
Goofs
[All goofs for this title are spoilers.]
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Goodnight Mommy takes more than it should to find its rhythm, but it eventually gains energy and becomes a very interesting psychological thriller. It's difficult to write a review of this film without revealing the disturbing events from its third act, so it will be better to be mentioning what does NOT happen. Even though Goodnight Mommy was widely acclaimed in websites dedicated to horror cinema, it isn't a typical supernatural tale or a gore spectacle (even though it can be said that there are slight traces of both styles); and the twist in the end is quite well implemented, and I had never seen it coming. The actors make an extraordinary work in their roles, revealing the complex relationship between their characters without too much words. The story is set at a cottage inhabited by three persons (well, there is some occasional "guest", but they are just auxiliaries of the plot who don't require too much definition). That minimalistic cast defines the general tone of the movie, shot with an elegant austerity (which is typical of European cinema) which is also reflected on the terse dialogs and cold cinematography, portraying the games of the kids and the moments of the ending with the same indifference. On the negative side, the screenplay takes more than it should to find its own rhythm, as I previously mentioned. On the one hand, that increments the suspense; but on the other hand, it occasionally leaves us on an emotional drift, without enough clues to draw conclusions or enough events to impulse the narrative. Fortunately, the many pros of Goodnight Mommy end up compensating that complaint on a big degree, and I recommend it as quite a solid film, which might be horror, thriller or drama; but its analysis of psychological traumas and family dissolution doesn't need to engage with a specific genre in order to leave the spectator satisfied.
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Goodnight Mommy takes more than it should to find its rhythm, but it eventually gains energy and becomes a very interesting psychological thriller. It's difficult to write a review of this film without revealing the disturbing events from its third act, so it will be better to be mentioning what does NOT happen. Even though Goodnight Mommy was widely acclaimed in websites dedicated to horror cinema, it isn't a typical supernatural tale or a gore spectacle (even though it can be said that there are slight traces of both styles); and the twist in the end is quite well implemented, and I had never seen it coming. The actors make an extraordinary work in their roles, revealing the complex relationship between their characters without too much words. The story is set at a cottage inhabited by three persons (well, there is some occasional "guest", but they are just auxiliaries of the plot who don't require too much definition). That minimalistic cast defines the general tone of the movie, shot with an elegant austerity (which is typical of European cinema) which is also reflected on the terse dialogs and cold cinematography, portraying the games of the kids and the moments of the ending with the same indifference. On the negative side, the screenplay takes more than it should to find its own rhythm, as I previously mentioned. On the one hand, that increments the suspense; but on the other hand, it occasionally leaves us on an emotional drift, without enough clues to draw conclusions or enough events to impulse the narrative. Fortunately, the many pros of Goodnight Mommy end up compensating that complaint on a big degree, and I recommend it as quite a solid film, which might be horror, thriller or drama; but its analysis of psychological traumas and family dissolution doesn't need to engage with a specific genre in order to leave the spectator satisfied.