Goodnight Mommy review: How successful is this new film on Amazon Prime Video in blending suspense, horror, and thriller?

Goodnight Mommy is a suspense/thriller/horror film that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, September 16, 2022. It is an American remake of the 2014 Austrian film of the same name, directed by Matt Sobel. It follows the story of twin brothers Elias and Lukas, who visit their mother and find her with a bandaged face.

Amazon Prime Video’s synopsis of Goodnight Mommy reads:

"Twin brothers arrive at their Mother’s country home to discover her face covered in bandages—the result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery. As her behavior grows increasingly erratic and unusual, however, a horrifying thought takes root in the boys’ minds: the sinking suspicion that the woman beneath the gauze isn’t their mother at all."

Naomi Watts plays the mother with a suspiciously covered face, while real-life twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti essay the on-screen pair of twins as well.

While Watts’ bandaged face is a good distraction from the real theme that the film deals with, the ghost in Goodnight Mommy is not the physical manifestation of an extra-terrestrial being, but the ghosts of one’s past. Here, Elias’ past haunts him and he is reluctant to let go of it because he does not want to be alone.

Read on to find out what happened in Goodnight Mommy, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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Goodnight Mommy review: The film blends suspense, thriller, and horror to prove the psychological impact of the three genre elements

Goodnight Mommy begins with twins Elias and Lukas being driven to their mother’s place by their father. The couple is separated but the reason behind the same is undisclosed. The twins arrive at an eerily isolated farm house with a barn in the back – a perfect setting for a film that claims to follow the horror genre.

They meet their mother, played by Watts, and are surprised to see her face covered. It’s a mask that, as shown later, can be taken off and worn like a dress, but the mother calls it a bandage as a result of a cosmetic surgery that, she said, she needed for a fresh start.

An image of two kids responding to a human with a covered face barring the eyes and the nostrils, is in itself a terrifying sight. With no agency to run away or seek help, Goodnight Mommy begins by building the right setting in the perfect environment. But that is where it stops.

What follows is the same tale of uncovering the mystery – here, the mystery behind the mask – until the blindsiding revelation that comes towards the end.

The family could be recovering from an incident that happened last winter, according to a reference, and the same has left its members coming up with their own defense mechanisms.

While the mother could have employed the surgery as her mechanism, Elias and Lukas have one another. The film does not focus too much on the father, and neither does it bother to explain the same.

While Elias is emotionally attached to his mother, Lukas comes off as someone unbothered by his brother’s concerns. However, Lukas is the one to sow the seeds of suspicion that the woman they were staying with was not their mother and could be an imposter.

Throughout Goodnight Mommy, Lukas’ character is not directly addressed or communicated to, thereby setting the stage for the biggest climax that hits towards the end of the film. But the film loses its edge and fails to carry forward the legacy that the original Austrian film created in 2014.

The 2014 film came with a different ending and that explains the disconnect in the American remake. Had the remake stayed loyal to its origins, it would not have turned out to be as scattered as it is.

Goodnight Mommy cannot be categorized into one genre, or even a subset of genres. It is natural for horror, suspense, and thriller genres to have similar journeys, but it is the destination that defines the primary genre of a film.

The film lacks this prioritization because that is not what it aims for. What begins as an out-and-out horror film, traverses its way into a psychological thriller that eventually deals with mental health.

From a face-covered mother in an eerie setting, instances of skin-peeling similar to that of Lovecraft Country, to the final revelation, Goodnight Mommy thus makes for a complex watch.

A still from the film (Image via IMDb)

It withdraws faith from both the eyes and the mind, and reposes confidence at convenience. Even the dialogues in the film seem to convey this pro-convenience motion, as Watts' character said in a scene,

“That line between reality and fantasy is vanished.”

Although there are questions by the end of the film, Goodnight Mommy’s clear-cut aim and tight-knit script prevents these questions from emerging to the surface.

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Real-life twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti hit the ball out of the park

The stars of the film remain twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti. The bond of brotherhood that is grounded in reality seamlessly translates onto the screen. Elias and Lukas are each other’s anchors. One cannot imagine his existence without the other, especially Elias.

While Cameron excels as Elias, Nicholas’ swift transition from one emotional point to another in the climax is breath-takingly terrifying.

The Crovetti brothers began their careers together with the show Big Little Lies, where they appeared as the twin sons of Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard.

The young actors are spot on in terms of delivering an earnest yet confusing performance. Watts delivers as a mother who shuffles multiple emotions owing to an incident in the recent past that has left certain scars in its wake. Watts is as terrifying as the suspected imposter, while redeeming the traits of motherhood with as much ease.

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Goodnight Mommy is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.