Mama doesn't know it should be scary in order for it to work as a horror movie

Mama (2013)

Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) kills two of his co-workers, his wife and takes his two daughters to a cabin in the woods in plans of killing them also, but is stopped by a ghost living in the cabin. The two daughters are left in the cabin for five years and are being taken care of by the ghost they start calling "mama". Then Jefferey's brother Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau again) manages to track them down and take the daughters into custody with his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain). But "mama" doesn't like her children being taken from her, so some cheap scares and plenty of explaining the ridiculous plot follows. I must say I kind of liked the start of the movie and the premise looked good, but unfortunately this movie fails miserably on the one thing it sets out to do, scare the viewer. All the "horror" in this movie was nothing but cheap scares, there was not really any tension building at all. And the "mama" character was unintentionally funny with the wacky face and ridiculous poses. So every time she jumps out from the dark to scare you, you're just left wondering should you laugh or cry. Though I must say the children were quite creepy, especially at the start. So it's a downhill slope from the good start towards the ending which was nothing short of idiotic. Sure there's some good things in the movie like the acting for example, most of the cast is quite great and I liked the flashback sequence shot from "mama's" point of view, but those were not nearly enough to save this movie. So in the end it's a "horror" movie which isn't scary and with a ridiculous plot, that's not much to go with.
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