Let’s All Go to the Lobby to Get Ourselves Some Meat! – GOODNIGHT MOMMY (2015)

Whether you saw its twist coming or not, “Goodnight Mommy” is keen to brutalize both your nerves and your expectations.

Arthouse theaters are a blessing sometimes. Sure, I’ll take in a STAR WARS movie or get dragged along to some “event” blockbuster once in a blue moon, but for the most part I don’t want to deal with inflated prices or the noisy, smartphone-obsessed sheep so eager to pay them. Therefore, smaller venues are my weapons of choice.

I spent a good chunk of my formative years in L.A. grindhouses, but let’s gets classy today instead. Well, at least as classy as we can be when we’re reviewing a movie centering around  torturing people with Super Glue and cockroaches.

Twin boys, Lukas and Elias, have a problem: they’re fairly sure the bandaged woman who recently returned home from plastic surgery is not their mother. With only one way to find out, they begin a heinous attack on their “mom” in an effort to find out the truth. All of this is carefully orchestrated by the interesting Austrian aunt/nephew duo of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. I say ‘carefully orchestrated’ because the payoff of the film isn’t really about the identity of the mother. 

Some moviegoers say they figured out the film’s famous twist early on in the proceedings, and I imagine a number of them are familiar with the German tongue. (The flick’s native title is “Ich Seh, Ich Seh” meaning “I See, I See”). From a personal standpoint, I was kind of amused that GOODNIGHT MOMMY’s twist queued up somewhat with the ending to my own first novel, “Woof”, which was released just months later. A second viewing of the film will make you slap your forehead that you didn’t catch the huge clue Franz and Fiala throw at you in the first five minutes. However, I’ve watched this at least three times now and each time I’m allowed to better soak up its more subtle, scary details. Without the need to figure out the “puzzle” of its plot, it almost seems to become a more enjoyable experience, which is weird to admit considering the film is ultimately an exposé of regret and blame.  

Regardless of the twist, the film is meticulously constructed and quite effective. Though Franz and Fiala’s touted follow-up, THE LODGE, didn’t quite hit the bullseye for me, the talent of this pair is undeniable. I’m looking forward to taking in their latest release, THE DEVIL’S BATH, in the near future.

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