Goodnight Mommy [Blu-ray]

𝑺𝒉𝒆'𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒅𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕.Goodnight Mommy is a 2014 Austrian psychological horror film. The film is written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.Elias and Lukas are two twin boys who do everything together - from collecting beetles to feeding stray cats. After welcoming their mother home following reconstructive surgery her bandaged face and distant demeanor make them grow increasingly suspicious of her identity.If you seen one you've seen them all - or, at least that's what dedicated fans of horror are likely to say about their experience with ‘Goodnight Mommy’. The good news for people that can't relate is this: that the scariest moments are in the trailer for this film. I myself always appreciate a lack of dependency on jump-scares, but this doesn't keep France and Fiala from utilizing elements that are haphazardly tropey in the context that is ‘GM’. Martin Gshlacht’s Cinematography lends to the atmospheric lack of ease by capturing moments of familiarity and warping haimish symbols that otherwise should provide a sense of comfort. It's difficult to infer why certain elements are included as they appear to only exaggerate the eccentricity of the core characters (spoiler alert: people with an aversion to animal abuse or gore fixated around the mouth need not subject themselves to this), but it doesn't compromise the potential for elasticity of the overarching circumstances at hand.Early on ‘Goodnight Mommy’ riddles its potential for ingenuity with a slew of bullet size potholes. I'm certainly not one to complain when a mystery is afoot as I’m not one to ruminate over possibilities, but there is room to validate points of contention held together by some suspension from reality. The nature of the mom’s identity is constantly called into question, but this often leads to a conversation that chases its own tail; demands to prove her Identity are bluntly stunted, put through the wringer, and then slapped back on to the drawing board. There's much to be said about the myriad of ways in which mom is “baited” into this conversation as it relates to a child's view of the world, but the tediousness of it all might lull some viewers to sleep. It is worth acknowledging the use of dramatic irony since many interactions and behaviors appear to be done in secret that only audience members are made privy to, but at the end of the day even this irony seems more like a consolation prize then it does a necessary plot device.Interestingly enough, the subject matter of ‘Goodnight Mommy’ had a significant influence on how the casting pool for it was subsequently skimmed through. Out of 120 pairs of twins that auditioned Elias and Lukas Schwarz Were chosen because of their appearances (at it presumes innocence) and their reactions to commands encouraging some need for vague improvisation on the spot. The performances seen here aren't exactly “exceptional”, but they're straightforward and self-guided tenacity (as the children also didn’t have a script made available to them and instead learned about the story as it was filmed in chronological order) effectively hurdles over muddled nuances and exhausted clichés while smoothly carrying the casual nature of terror that makes ‘Goodnight Mommy’ psychologically distressing.All Things Considered - the suspense maintained throughout is not compounded with an attempt to surprise; there certainly is a twist laying in wake for audience members, but within the first 10 to 15 minutes the cat is let out the bag. The screenwriter's conveniently laid kafkatrap is foiled by an inability to fully commit to moments that could tease truths and understandably forces certain points of engagement to violently hit a brick wall. Alternatively, for audience members interested in understanding 𝒘𝒉𝒚 the twist is happening as opposed to simply seeing how it plays out: this is where the film and it's potential for enjoyment really begins.Hence my cue.Grief, trauma, and the way they can rear their ugly heads is nothing new to the horror genre: it’s beaten to death in films like 𝑯𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒆𝒆𝒌 (2005) and subtly reaffirmed in ones like 𝑴𝒊𝒅𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓 (2019). ‘Goodnight Mommy’ simmers in its deliberately heartbreaking premise with delicacy and successfully personifies a brutally tangible desperation for normalcy following a period of significant loss and calamity. Its attempts at misdirection fall short under evidently conspicuous dialogue and interactions, but it's the everlasting certainty of it all that makes ‘GM’ a slow burn in more ways than one. When conceptualized as a story about maneuvering around change it's fairly easy to understand how France and Fiala fail to boast claims to a structurally secured conundrum or a relatively stationary target. It is apparent by far that ’Goodnight Mommy’’s aim has much room for improvement, but its nefarious endorsement of sayings that suggest home can be a person and that there's no place quite like it makes the shots that it does take uncomfortably close and consistently commendable.

The film holds value as an aesthetic wonder. It is visually stunning, morally disturbing and strangely provocative. It plays wonderfully with the spectator's perceptions, threatening their assumptions and shaking their schematic foundations. The first half of the film comprises the view of the child; the second increasingly projects the perspective of the mother as their roles begin to reverse and the child-victim becomes the child-aggressor. However, the story has some surprising gaps that are never adequately addressed by the filmmakers. While it becomes clear later in the film that the first half is the child's perspective, it is difficult to understand why we the audience are seeing the mother alone and behaving so strangely. Yes, we come to realize later on that it is because that is what her child is imagining and not reality; however, there are more than one instance of the mother acting aggressive and odd both toward her child and alone, such that the switch into victim mode seems unbelievable.It is just as untenable that a plot about a severely disturbed child would not include a convalescent mother with such obvious material means as shown in the film with a helper of some kind, if not to show how the immaculate, posh home is being cared for so nicely on the surface, then at least an assistant to help with the evidently traumatized child who is revealed to us as a psychopath.Films which do the same in terms of psycho-horror involving severe threats to the middle-class or upper class family such as  Funny Games  or others which this film appears to emulate in its striving to depict the nuclear-family unit or parent-child dyad under siege, and the cruel social disintegration of communities accomplish their goals by setting up a logical chain of cause and effect within the bizarre yet poignantly truthful social worlds they have chosen.Goodnight Mommy doesn't do that quite as well. And, at some points the violence and torture becomes nearly gratuitous, or if not gratuitous then working to reinforce the trope of the evil child toward whom the audience becomes fearful. Ultimately, Goodnight Mommy plays not only upon the audience's expectations but undermines the modern mythic construct of the innocent child, mythic in terms of its value as that which a society believes about itself more than something that is somehow fabricated outside social and historical contexts. Goodnight Mommy tears the mythic fabric asunder without offering a context of its own that might aid in contesting the destructive dynamic it presents. What is clear is that the mother-child, specifically mother-son, duo is in shocking disarray, as part of an isolated fragment of a society that doesn't come to the rescue of the little family, like the cold and reluctantly helping priest and Red Cross workers who have no clue as to what is really happening between the mother and child. The screenplay is such that although they are provided a few clues that all is not right, they blithely leave the disturbed home without intervening.As part of the film's utter coldness, it exudes no humor, an oversight which, whether intended or not, differentiates itself from the most effective horror and psycho-thrillers such as Rosemary's Baby , Lord of the Flies: Essential Art House , The Shining  and many of Hitchcock's films. Humor, part of the rich repertoire of human emotions that provides respite, however brief, from the genuine horrors in the lives of characters subjected to the varied torments their creators have chosen, saves us not from the truth - for better or worse no representation can ever quite access it for all people in all times - but rather allows us to wander into a greater truth without submerging our humanity along with it.

I think I figured out where the director an screen writers Veronika Franz an Severin Fiala were going with this,the reason I said this is because I’ve got the blu-ray to prove it, after watching the special features with heran Franz I got that feeling of what there're saying, going back to when she was a young girl seeing when hermother was mad at some points in her life, its like this monster would come out of her, an I feel the same way,but I don’t think I’ve ever though of doing what was transpired in this movie at all, we’ve all jump at scary moviesin some way shape or form in our like, some people jump for the simplest of things, someone sneak up behind you,this is not that kind of jump of a movie, its dark, very dark indeed in the sense of how the viewer,perceived the outcome, and I absolutely am not going to give it away, there is a twist at the end I don’t know ifpeople have seen that or even heard it but its there, the movie is very slow at first with the kids doing some sillystuff as kids do but it actually hits you very hard as it progress to its conclusion, if for some reason family lifeis a treasure to you this is definitely not for you to see, very disturbing stuff to this movie,I’ll say one thing for sure, you have to see this two times to see what you’ve missed, because there’s a whole lotgoing on from these kids perspective even if its so vile of an outcome, it always amaze me at how people writethere reviews giving away the story or parts of the movie, I know I’ve done it before, but, its like you can’t geta sense of there realism to the movie itself, like an artistic movement of the 19th century featuring non-idealizedscenes of modern life, they sure are no Realist that for bloody sure, I can handle this because you’ll never seethis from another director ever again, but then again I’ve seen Blood Diamond with those so-called child-soldiers,German 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.Widescreen 2.39:1Run Time 100 Min.If Mommy Don’t Speak Something's I Guess Wrong...

Excellent service !! Rapide et item neuf comme convenu !!

Simply perfect...

Great movie

Not as scary as I thought it would be.