Directed and Written by : Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Starring : Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz, Susanne Wuest
Release Date : January 8, 2015
"Ich Seh Ich Seh" AKA "Goodnight Mommy" starts off with two young siblings playing together, nearby and in an isolated country side home. In fact, a good portion of this movie are just dedicated to scenes of the siblings playing. Soon, their mother comes home after being away for some period of time, except her face is wrapped in bandages, and the boys start being suspicious of whether she is who she claims to be. No good can come of this right?
This is somewhat closer to an unconventional horror movie in the sense that while there are a few jump scare moments, it isn't completely littered with that. It's much more atmospherically creepy and unnerving, with the intention of getting under your skin. Eventually, things do get disturbingly dark and horrifying. I even found some of those scenes quite shocking to see, in the context of where the story is going.
The movie is definitely not for everybody. It's pacing is purposefully slow, which can get a little frustrating to put up with. The premise may also feel fresh and inspired, but I also thought it was a little too predictable for it to be considered truly clever. It may have played it's hand way too early, and it felt like I was just putting up with the long wait to the climax. Oh and I should mention that there are several scenes involving lots of bugs. I hate bugs.
While "Goodnight Mommy" had some great ideas to put on screen, I somehow feel like the whole thing could have been simply done as a short film. But then we would lose all that slow burning dread that this film was effectively going for.
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