The nonchalance with which it’s delivered is both breathtaking and gut-wrenching. The less said about that the better, but needless to say the sort of person not perturbed by child-on-adult violence is probably few and far between. As you might expect from identical twins, they seem to share a bond that transcends that of your average siblings yet, as the balance of power shifts from mother to sons in the film’s second half, it becomes clear that Lukas is the one prompting their actions, Elias following his lead in carrying out their retaliation. Real life twins Lukas and Elias Schwarz pull off the remarkable trick of carrying the film with the gravitas of veteran actors, despite Goodnight Mommy being their film debut. It is a private world, cut off socially from others, an alien planet where horror can lurk in some truly pitch black corners. Male adults tend to exist solely in the background, unconnected from the isolated house where the boys live. In essence, this is a story about familial skeletons, the burden of the single parent and the instability of two young boys left to their own devices, their shocking delinquency compounded by the absence of a father figure (curiously, there are no pictures of a father in the house).
#WATCH GOODNIGHT MOMMY STREAMING ONLINE SKIN#
It has the dark soul of gothic Germanic fairy tales but the outer skin of a sophisticated (albeit gruesome) art house, surrealist horror. Of course, directing duo Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz approach the subject matter with their own unique flair for the macabre, unravelling a nightmare that only grows more taut as the story progresses. Other reviews have made numerous comparisons all across the board, from Eyes Without A Face to The Reflecting Skin all fine examples of the type of gothic horror that is on display here. The previous mention of Austrian director Michael Haneke is quite apropos, as the hysteria and paranoia associated with Haneke’s Funny Games and Hidden features very strongly in Goodnight Mommy.
Is this woman truly their real mother or are Elias and Lukas at the mercy of something much more sinister? Then mommy comes home, her face hideously protected by bandages, her behaviour disturbingly erratic and frequently cruel. The sort of behaviour that would freeze the blood of the most liberal down-to-earth parent. They run behind harvesters as they collect the summer’s bounty. They enter a mausoleum piled to the ceiling with human bones to rescue an injured cat. They collect cockroaches inside a fish tank. Having no one else to play with, they entertain themselves as they await the return of their mother (Susanne Wuest) who has been in hospital undergoing facial reconstruction surgery. Twin brothers Lukas and Elias (played by Lukas and Elias Schwarz using their real names) live in an idyllic countryside surrounded by forests, fields and genteel Austrian villages. And now that Goodnight Mommy has finally been released online – and having watched it repeatedly – it deepens the sadness of having missed the chance to see it on the big screen. Luckily, thanks to the modern conveniences of downloads and streaming, it’s almost now impossible for any film to fall into obscurity. If memory serves me right, there was a one-night only screening of it in the Islington area of London and a prior engagement that night prevented me from attending. Fangoria drooled over it.The trailer promised psychological dread in the vein of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. Yet finding a cinema showing it nearby proved an insurmountable challenge.
One of the great disappointments for me earlier this year was never seeing Goodnight Mommy on a cinema screen.
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