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Goodnight Mommy

GOODNIGHT MOMMY (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz) 99 minutes. Subtitled. Rating: NNN

Where to watch: iTunes


The Austrian horror movie Goodnight Mommy is the stuff of nightmares.

Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s psychological chiller is told from the perspective of a young boy named Elias who becomes convinced (with some prodding from his twin brother, Lukas) that their mother is not their mother.

The woman in the house (Susanne Wuest) has had reconstructive surgery after an unexplained incident. She won’t address Elias and is hesitant with Lukas. Tensions grow and eventually reach a breaking point – which is where Fiala and Franz abandon the slow-burn horror and launch into full-on torture porn.

The moviemaking is exquisite, with a serene visual sensibility that recalls Fiala and Franz’s countryman Michael Haneke. Lukas and Elias are played by actual twins, Lukas and Elias Schwarz, which gives their watchful characters an additional unsettling edge. (Not all twins are inherently creepy, but these two absolutely are.)

There’s just one problem: the entire movie is built around one plot point that’s not nearly as obscured- as Fiala and Franz think it is – and once you catch on, you’ll realize how totally Goodnight Mommy depends on misdirection and outright cheating.

That said, the emotional stuff still lands, and Wuest is terrific in a very tricky role. It just didn’t surprise me is all.

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