Universal Pictures recently released a synopsis for its upcoming supernatural thriller.
Mama is based on a short film created by director Andres Muschietti, in which a pair of sisters encounter the ghost of their murdered mother.
After seeing the original Potuguese language short a year or so ago, Universal hired famed horror producer Guillermo del Toro to work with Muschetti to bring the film to the silver screen.
Primary photography recently finished on the feature, and now we’ve got an official synopsis to explain how the short film was expanded to feature-length:
The day their father killed their mother, sisters Victoria and Lilly vanished near their suburban neighborhood. For five long years, their Uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home.
As Annabel tries to introduce the children to a normal life, she grows convinced of an evil presence in their house. Are the sisters experiencing traumatic stress, or is a ghost coming to visit them? How did the broken girls survive those years all by themselves? As she answers these disturbing questions, the new mother will find that the whispers she hears at bedtime are coming from the lips of a deadly presence.
Here’s that original short for reference:
Mama, which stars, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones‘ Jamie Lanister) and Jessica Chastain, comes to theaters on January 18th, 2013 – recently changed from an October 2012 date due to post-production delays.
