“Mama” is a nightmare of maternal instincts that comes very close to stepping over the PG-13 line many times during the movie. This was no splatter fest; the faint of heart will feel at ease when they hear assurance there will not be any detached limbs or grotesque fleshy things. Guillermo Del Toro has a history of producing scary movies that involve Spanish folklore i.e. (faeries, gnomes, satyrs and other mythic creatures,) and imperiled children, with some of his more famous movies being “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Don’t be Afraid of the Dark”.

The scares relied on suspense and musical exclamation marks, which I felt was kind of refreshing, considering a lot movies in the genre in the past couple years have been slasher types that involve gratuitous amounts of gore 99 percent of the time. “Mama” involves the fate of two children who were alone in a cabin in the woods and cared for by a ghost woman they call “Mama.”

Found and put in the care of their uncle, they continue to talk and play with “Mama” who the guardians brush aside as an imaginary friend or an alter ego. Unfortunately, they aren’t that lucky. Without revealing too much, chaos soon follows and the children must choose between the homicidal yet consistent ghost mother, “Mama,” and Annabel, the uncle’s girlfriend played by Jessica Chastain, who may be more inconsistent but is less terrifyingly dangerous.

Andy Muschietti does a great job directing his first moving under the wing of Guillermo Del Toro. “Mama” gave me the impression that it would be a movie capable to be enjoyed in the theatres or at home, because the movie itself was genuinely frightening and just really good.