Twin brothers arrive at their mother’s house and suspect something isn’t right. A remake of the 2014 Austrian film.
Director Matt Sobel’s remake of the 2014 Austrian version of “Goodnight Mommy” gives the original psychological thriller little or no justice. When the film opens, twin brothers Lucas and Elias (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) are returned to their famous mother’s house in the country after they’ve been staying with their father (Peter Hermann) while she recovers from radical cosmetic surgery. A red flag subtly raises when he refuses to go in to say hello, stating that she probably doesn’t want to see him (referring to their estranged relationship). When the boys walk inside, she is noticeably absent, and when they finally meet up with her, she doesn’t greet them in her usual manner, and her entire head is covered in one continuous bandage. While it feels a little creepy, they aren’t totally thrown off until she mentions several new house rules, and she refuses to let them stay up or sing their favorite bedtime song, “You Are My Sunshine!”
When they decide to spy on her instead of going to bed, their mother (Naomi Watts) is caught sexy dancing in front of the mirror while smoking a cigarette and admiring herself in the mirror. Slowly the brothers start to put their heads together, thinking something is genuinely amiss when they are barred from the barn and other rooms in the house and told not to make contact with their father. When their mom finds out that they have snuck into the barn, she goes into a rage, and they try their best to contact their father when they realize they are in danger and need to be rescued from this cruel person’s continuous attempt to impersonate their mother. When she destroys their phone, they make plans for a getaway to a nearby house, only to be picked up by two police officers, Gary (Jeremy Bobb) and Sandy (Crystal Lucas-Perry), and are taken back to their home and left to fend for themselves when the monster-mother convinces the police that the boys were making things up. As the plot thickens, the two boys become divided in their thoughts as to whether this is really their mother and are torn apart when she uses her motherly instincts to get one to let her loose from the restraints they put on her while the other runs for his life. Things really heat up when she leads one son to the barn, and the entire script flips and appears to self-destruct when the actual mother shows up after some really confusing activities take place behind the barn doors, and the two brothers reunite under oddly familiar circumstances.
The psychologically thrilling part of this remake was adequate in that there was definitely a bit of mind-boggling scare tactics that kept your brain bracing for the next move; however, the only real saving grace was the superb acting demonstrated by Naomi Watts and twin brothers, Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti. While Naomi Watts’ producing duties may have given her an inside perspective as one of the main characters, this disproportioned remake never quite caught up to giving the original a run for its money.
Available on Amazon Prime Video Friday, September 16th
