Once upon a time… horror films knew how to consistently land their third act. The original Black Christmas, The Exorcist and John Carpenter’s The Thing build tension and escalate the scares without falling apart by the end, but you don’t even need to go back that far to find ones that get it right thanks to (relatively) recent movies like [REC], The Mist and The Innkeepers. But more than any other genre a lot of horror films from the last few years simply drop the ball before the credits roll. Andrés Muschietti‘s Mama continues that trend unfortunately, but truth be told its grip is pretty damn tenuous from the beginning. After Victoria and Lily’s father kills their mother and some co-workers he takes the girls on a drive that ends with a crash in the woods. The trio wander the cold, desolate forest before finding an old, seemingly deserted cabin and settling in for the night. Father of the year doesn’t make it to morning. Five years later the now feral girls are found and returned to their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabelle (Jessica Chastain), but something else has come home with them and it’s not too keen on sharing custody.

Why Watch? This January, we’ll be able to see Andres Muschietti‘s Mama, which finds Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and a goth Jessica Chastain adopting two feral girls (trailer here). The feature makes this short film a prologue to a much larger story, but it’s not hard to imagine what scared producer Guillermo del Toro when he first laid eyes on this gripping three minutes. Simplicity itself, the script for MAMA was probably less than a page, but the combination of screaming children, little feet running away in terror, groaning string music, camera work that seems to contort the space its in, and a jerking murder of humanity is more than enough to fray nerves. The 2008 short gets an improved presentation here, complete with an introduction from del Toro. [Aint it Cool] What will it cost you? Only 3 minutes. Skip work. Watch more short films.

Blanket statement: let’s stop associating with feral children. It really hasn’t worked out too well, you know? Cinematically speaking, we have Nell from Nell (heartbreaking), Howie Mandel’s character from Walk Like a Man (embarrassing), Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th (yup, he lived in the woods), The Penguin from Batman Returns (yick), and the little monsters of the upcoming Citadel (monstrous). When it comes to real life, well, perhaps you can draw yourself away from this brief listing of feral children over at Wikipedia, which I’ve been studying intently for quite awhile now, but good luck on that. That all said, look! New feral movie children! What a terrible idea! In Andres Muschietti‘s Mama, a pair of kids are discovered years after their mother was murdered and also after they disappeared into some nearby woods. To live in. Ever since. For years. Let’s definitely adopt them! Of course, their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has no choice, and does just that. Too bad that his little nieces might not have been alone in the woods after all (cue creepy stuff). And, for added scares, the gorgeous Jessica Chastain goes Goth for her role. After the break, check out the first trailer for the full-length Mama and, for added scares, you can also watch Muschietti’s original short, 2008′s Mamá, which inspired the film.