Goodnight Mommy (Austrian horror flick)

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Britnasty

It's out on DVD and Bluray in Germany and Austria October 23rd so that's what it probably references.

Wonder if they have English subs. Hope so.

[ccg1978]

Originally Posted by xbs2034

This review claims VOD on Nov 24th.
http://www.wickedhorror.com/horror-r...scary-and-fun/

Also, don't see a DVD or Blu on Amazon, which you think it might be if it was that close to release (could be another region perhaps?)

Wow, a lot of different dates out there. VOD after disc release in EUR? I just hope to be able to see it on Halloween

[xbs2034]

Saw the film this evening. It's a pretty good film with very strong acting, though I liked it more as a psychological drama and mood piece than its horror elements. For a movie this year with similar pace and tone, closest I can think of is Ex Machina, but this is a very different movie and while bits remind me of other films as well, no great comparison comes to mind overall.

Nice that it played at such a convenient location (as I said, near work and about a mile from home) when that theater rarely gets such a limited release right, though it was pretty empty (around 10% full, even if 5:40 pm Monday isn't prime movie time) and funny for a small Austrian movie, 3 of the 4 previews were from the biggest commercial name directors out there (Spielberg, Bay, and Tarantino).

[MikeScott]

The trailer went viral with tons of views so with the awareness I could see them not bothering to go VOD with it. Would be neat if they tried a bit wider release. Maybe 500-900 theaters.

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by MikeScott

The trailer went viral with tons of views so with the awareness I could see them not bothering to go VOD with it. Would be neat if they tried a bit wider release. Maybe 500-900 theaters.

So will this be available On Demand? And if so, when? Sept 16th was the original date, right? Tomorrow?

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by eiknarf

So will this be available On Demand? And if so, when? Sept 16th was the original date, right? Tomorrow?

We don't know, Radius has said nothing in their advertising about a VOD release, and there is some word it should be hitting soon, and others saying not till late November (which would follow a traditional theatrical release pattern).

Could be like Snowpiercer and It Follows, where Radius waited to see how it performed in its limited theatrical release first before deciding to either put it out on early VOD, or go with a traditional theatrical run.

[StevenHarvey1990]

Hope it's available to watch by the end of October. It is a Horror after all. Would be a huge shame having to wait until next years Halloween season.

[bfaulk85]

Here's hoping it's on VOD soon. I'd love to see it, but it isn't playing at any theaters near me.

[Brayden_Berger]

The boys are so cute.

[Holmes]

This highly praised Austrian suspense film is well-constructed, gorgeous even, on nearly every technical level, but it left me empty and a shade frustrated. The story turns on adolescent brothers (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) whose idyllic summer is disrupted by the return of their mother (Susanne Wuest) after reconstructive facial surgery. The children are uncomfortable around this distant, bandage-swathed disciplinarian and begin to suspect she may be an impostor. With each day, the atmosphere in their luxurious and secluded home grows more tense. Can they trust their mother? Is she safe around them?

Simply put, I regard this film as around an hour and 10 minutes of modestly creepy miscellany (a dead animal! a dream sequence! a field on fire! a graveyard!) situated in a vacuum and doled out at a snail's pace, then a 30-minute blast of borderline torture pornography and a fairly predictable twist. Yes, the cast is strong and in tune with the subjective space within which they must play, and the 35-millimeter cinematography is as elegant and Haneke-brand icy as the house where the action unfolds. But I found it hard to detect a pulse beneath the veneer. The characters constantly serve the contrived screenplay, so I never invested in their fate or felt scared for (or by) them. And once the film's violent and sentimental final cards are dealt, the lengthy and deliberate buildup feels arbitrary in retrospect, its opacity more a shrewd gambit to earn festival-circuit laurels than an organic and earned preamble.

C+

[Show spoiler]The story is rather amusing when considered from an objective place above the action: after being away from her profoundly traumatized son for a while due to major surgery, a famous and wealthy television presenter decides to return home and instantly adopt this tough-love distance to discourage him from obsessing over his dead brother...while still covered in creepy bandages and without any in-person assistance from a loved one or a mental-health professional (not even after finding a dead cat floating in an aquarium in the living room).

Who was even watching him while she was in the hospital?

She also does a notably poor job arguing her case when tied up, barely drawing at all on her shared history with her son. No, "Remember when you were five?" anecdotes. This helps the audience, of course, because it allows us to continue to entertain the notion she may be a liar or a menace.

[ronboster]

Originally Posted by Holmes

This highly praised Austrian suspense film is well-constructed, gorgeous even, on nearly every technical level, but it left me empty and a shade frustrated. The story turns on adolescent brothers (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) whose idyllic summer is disrupted by the return of their mother (Susanne Wuest) after reconstructive facial surgery. The children are uncomfortable around this distant, bandage-swathed disciplinarian and begin to suspect she may be an impostor. With each day, the atmosphere in their luxurious and secluded home grows more tense. Can they trust their mother? Is she safe around them?

Simply put, I regard this film as around an hour and 10 minutes of modestly creepy miscellany (a dead animal! a dream sequence! a field on fire! a graveyard!) situated in a vacuum and doled out at a snail's pace, then a 30-minute blast of borderline torture pornography and a fairly predictable twist. Yes, the cast is strong and in tune with the subjective space within which they must play, and the 35-millimeter cinematography is as elegant and Haneke-brand icy as the house where the action unfolds. But I found it hard to detect a pulse beneath the veneer. The characters constantly serve the contrived screenplay, so I never invested in their fate or felt scared for (or by) them. And once the film's violent and sentimental final cards are dealt, the lengthy and deliberate buildup feels arbitrary in retrospect, its opacity more a shrewd gambit to earn festival-circuit laurels than an organic and earned preamble.

C+

[Show spoiler]The story is rather amusing when considered from an objective place above the action: after being away from her profoundly traumatized son for a while due to major surgery, a famous and wealthy television presenter decides to return home and instantly adopt this tough-love distance to discourage him from obsessing over his dead brother...while still covered in creepy bandages and without any in-person assistance from a loved one or a mental-health professional (not even after finding a dead cat floating in an aquarium in the living room).

Who was even watching him while she was in the hospital?

She also does a notably poor job arguing her case when tied up, barely drawing at all on her shared history with her son. No, "Remember when you were five?" anecdotes. This helps the audience, of course, because it allows us to continue to entertain the notion she may be a liar or a menace.

I liked the film slightly more than you. I agree on many points, one being the fact it was not really a horror film, but more of a psychological suspense picture. I didn't mind the pacing, since I enjoyed the visual imagery of the film, real and imagined.

My one disappointment was the "twist" seemed to reveal itself too soon in the film, though I wasn't spot on with my guess, I was close enough to lessen my appreciation for the film.

[Show spoiler]I thought Lukas was an imagined friend to Elias or his "id". I realized later in the film after seeing the photographs, he was Elias' deceased brother.

[willtopower]

It's hard to pinpoint exactly why I was underwhelmed by the film, but it just didn't result in anything rewarding for me. When it was over I couldn't help but think

[Show spoiler]"Man, The Other is a good film."

[EvilResident]

I was very disappointed here. The trailer is incredibly misleading. I was expecting horror and got torture porn.

It was a very good movie, and it prompted good discussion, but I went with four of my friends expecting fun horror. 2/5 of us absolutely hated it, while my husband, our friend, and I liked it in a never-watch-it-again kind of way.

I also think the twist was far too telegraphed, and I found myself distracted by attempts to hide it a bit too much to really enjoy the first part, and I ended up just feeling incredibly sad about the entire situation.

[hanshotfirst1138]

The reviews of this have promised my notoriously subtitle-phobic friend enough gore that he's considering seeing it.

[Makarov]

I agree about the misleading trailer, we went in expecting one type of horror and got a completely different one. Didn't care for this movie very much, although the twist did surprise me, by that point I was already not liking it.

[jacobsever]

Having seen this movie back in May, I fell in love with it right away.

Then the trailer hit about a month ago and made headlines everywhere calling it "the scariest trailer of all time." The hype train was a-rollin. So, since I had already seen it, I knew the trailer was setting people up for wrong expectations. I did my best to comment everywhere I could warning people that this was a very slow burn, tense, dramatic "horror" film.

[Steedeel]

Still no news of English subtitles. looks like I will have to wait until next year.

[feeling22]

Originally Posted by Britnasty

2/5.I called the twist in the first 15 minutes, and from that point on, it's pretty much spot on to what is going on.

[Show spoiler]At the 8 minute and 30 second mark is when the very obvious twist can be seen.

Were they even trying to hide it? This film was okay but forgettable.

[jacobsever]

What exactly is the twist? I don't remember there being one in this film. I thought it was pretty straight forward.

[Impossible]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

What exactly is the twist? I don't remember there being one in this film. I thought it was pretty straight forward.

[Show spoiler]that one of the twins was dead/in his imagination