Editorials
‘Goodnight Mommy’ – The Kind of Remake That Gives Remakes a Bad Name [Revenge of the Remakes]
Anyone who’s kept pace with “Revenge of the Remakes” here on Bloody Disgusting knows I’m a rather outspoken advocate for horror remakes. They’re inevitable, serve multiple purposes, and aren’t the poison to filmmaking culture some claim. That said? Matt Sobel’s American remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy exemplifies everything you hate to see from such filmmaking practices. The Americanization bug strikes again, not even a decade since the Austrian dread machine’s 2014 release.
What’s worse? Sobel and screenwriter Kyle Warren rightfully approach Goodnight Mommy with an alternate vision. Unfortunately, it’s born from lullaby-babied intentions and uttered words that drive horror audiences bonkers. As Sobel reveals in his director’s statement: “We saw the opportunity to do something quite common in theater but unusual in cinema: to adhere roughly to the original plot but reframe it in a way that completely changes its meaning — and perhaps even its genre.”
In other words: “What happens if we strip away the horror from Goodnight Mommy?”
The Approach
‘Goodnight Mommy’ (2014)
Matt Sobel and Kyle Warren recontextualize Goodnight Mommy by applying a “Homely Hallmark Channel” filter. The freshly streamable version on Prime Video features no cockroach-filled bellies, creepy arts-and-crafts masks, or bruised, sunken eyes behind freakishly wrapped gauze. Sobel’s directorial trademarks are much cleaner, less aggressive, and way more talkative because American studios don’t trust their audiences to stay attentive without blatant storytelling outlines. Everything about Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s original clings onto immeasurably dreadful moods that sustain an eerie doppelgänger spinetingler — Sobel ditches the shadows and focuses on human drama that dulls edges and smooths barbed points.
Naomi Watts stars as the update’s “Mommy,” an ailing celebrity still recovering from facial reconstruction surgery. Her separated ex-husband drops off their sons Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lucas (Nicholas Crovetti) for an extended visitation, quickly turning sour when the boys suspect their mother isn’t herself anymore. Elias and Lucas are convinced “Mommy” has been swapped with an unknown entity, so they start acting out or trying to flee. Mommy becomes more frustrated and is overheard on the phone saying she needs to separate the siblings, which sets a battle of wits in motion between imaginatively confused children and whoever’s calling herself “Mommy.”
Warren’s screenplay leans heavier on dialogue, putting unnecessary pressure on the Crovettis as all-American boys who no longer obsess over insects or superglue mommy’s mouth shut. Elias and Lucas speak their way through scene after scene of brotherly companionship, giving more opportunity to spoil the milestone surprise. The same way Watts has more chances to burst into bedrooms flying off the handle at random or speaking in circles around the shocking twist that awaits. Sobel’s oversold enthusiasm for exploring the psychological horrors behind Goodnight Mommy misunderstands what makes Franz and Fiala’s simmering domestic imprisonment so heart-wrenchingly and visually devastating — a reduction that cooks off any enticing genre flavor.
Does It Work?
‘Goodnight Mommy’ (2022)
It’s impossible to watch Matt Sobel’s remake with any sense of appreciation if you’ve seen Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s leaps-and-bounds superior original. Sobel’s is less Goodnight Mommy and more Goodnight Audience. Whatever technical merit exists through sharply framed cinematography or workable performances is lost to unavoidable comparisons. Sobel’s instincts are like a wet blanket atop Elias and Lucas’ frantic defenses against mommy as we yearn to feel the gut-rot hopelessness that Franz and Fiala churn within our stomachs. Why would you take one of horror’s most accomplished feel-bad stunners of the 2010s and reckon to find out what happens if you tell the same story but without specific points of critical praise?
Sobel fumbles the Crovettis’ iterations of Elias and Lucas, no longer minor sociopaths who keep audiences on their toes. They’re meant to sell as victims and Watts’ mother a stark-raving lunatic because there’s no suspenseful command elsewhere. Where Franz and Fiala “show” to tremendous effect — the dead cat aquarium, the midnight roach snack, the crossbow — Sobel only knows how to “tell.” Elias and Lucas have to vocalize every pivot of their plan, each fault in their mother’s personality, which becomes a tedious chore. The same goes for Watts’ interactions with police officers or when tearing into Elias with out-of-character explosions that bluntly scream “BAD PERSON” at viewers. There’s zero trust in the audience’s comprehensive abilities, leaving no room for anything besides conversational drama.
Expect stumble after blunder as Sobel brightens and polishes 2022’s Goodnight Mommy. Watt’s web-clothed bandage situation lacks grim imposition, nor does her face resemble any leftover surgical traces. Cinematography does away with all the hunt-and-chase shadowplay that accentuates Susanne Wuest’s ghastly “Mother” figure as she obstructs doorways or peers down hallways. Gone are the audible gasps, elements of pedophobia, and imagery stingers that whittle away at our nerves. Sobel’s reworking favors nothing that excites horror fans, which is baffling since the core audience for Goodnight Mommy will be those who praise 2014’s savagely inclined source.
The Result
‘Goodnight Mommy’ (2022)
As a horror movie, 2014’s Goodnight Mommy knocks pitch after pitch out of the park. Shockingly enough, the only sequences where Sobel welcomes terror into his revamp are the most intriguing bites. Watts plays alien in her skin rather well, as Matt Sobel allows two nightmare fantasies where Elias sees her mother peel back flesh to reveal the monster underneath — although, even these glimpses fail to challenge the genre’s boundaries. America’s Goodnight Mommy represents the worst cornerstones of American horror: cheap scares, flatlined moods, and one dimension.
It’s almost like Sobel shields his audience from harm, whereas Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala strive to traumatize. Whatever evaluations of mental health exist both in Elias’ hyper interactivity with Lucas and his mother’s unpredictable responses to Elias’ constant inclusion of Lucas are weakened with so much expositional chatter. That’s not to say the Crovettis or Watts fail as actors — tonal imbalances, reliances on dialogue, and lazier attention to Lucas’ whereabouts in terms of camera placement are unshakable toxic traits. Sobel kidnaps one of the most dangerous horror tales since its release and gives it a lobotomy to produce a docile, obedient Goodnight Mommy that my horror-hating mamma might stamp with approval.
Everything that happens after Elias and Lucas duct tape their mother to her bed epitomizes why American horror remakes fail compared to their foreign originals. It’s not even about the dehumanization of Wuest’s mother as she lies in her urine, spewing blood, with a magnifying glass burn on her cheek. Sobel could achieved suspense without violent gore — countless filmmakers have prior. It’s more about an ending that spoils itself before Watts’ mother even begins to remind Elias about Lucas’ fate, neutering impact before Elias sees his ghost family smiling back, happily ever after. Franz and Fiala maliciously toy with our emotions until tearing away the rug to reveal a pit of spikes that is their goodnight to mommy — Sobel straps our swimmies on and throws us in the shallow end with a guardian’s supervision.
The Lesson
‘Goodnight Mommy’ (2022)
Matt Sobel’s Goodnight Mommy follows my golden rule regarding remakes, especially without much time between releases — differentiate yourself. Sobel and Kyle Warren chart their own course, they’re just woefully inefficient. Goodnight Mommy is a passable-at-best standalone that’s embarrassingly realized as a remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s modern masochistic marvel. Both will leave your jaw on the floor — 2014’s from shock and awe, 2022’s from yawning too often. It’s like swapping a juicy, handcrafted, butcher-ground bratwurst with a factory-processed, slimy, assembly line hot dog. Why would you?
So what did we learn?
● Finding a way to differentiate your remake from its original is always the right decision — execution is another story.
● Understanding what makes said original successful is crucial and should probably be somewhat retained in future iterations.
● Yanking the “horror” out of a horror remake will never win you points with its core audience.
● The comparative timidness of American mainstream horror boundaries is most evident in remakes like the soulless Goodnight Mommy. There was no chance we’d see anything as extreme or expressive as Austria’s soulsucker (compliment).
Since I’ve seen Goodnight Mommy, I’m allowed to ask the following question: Why? There’s no honor in prejudging films before release, but afterward? Critique is fair game, and Goodnight Mommy represents everything that leads to horror remake stigmas. Prime Video’s far more accessible reimagining exhibits nothing that conveys why the original is so talked about, which surely won’t drive newcomer audiences to the international, subtitled inspiration. It exists as an alternative that so hard-headedly opposes Franz and Fiala’s magnum-to-the-head opus, in a way that only detracts, never adds, nor multiplies. To honor Goodnight Mommy with something so pedestrian and unspectacular is purely an insult.
In Revenge of the Remakes, columnist Matt Donato takes us on a journey through the world of horror remakes. We all complain about Hollywood’s lack of originality whenever studios announce new remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, but the reality? Far more positive examples of refurbished classics and updated legacies exist than you’re willing to remember (or admit). The good, the bad, the unnecessary – Matt’s recounting them all.
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
Looking for New Episodes of “Chucky” on Peacock? Here’s What Changed
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
‘Terrifier 3’: Filming Has Wrapped on Damien Leone’s Christmas Slasher Sequel!
‘Halloween: Illustrated’ Review: Original Novelization of John Carpenter’s Classic Gets an Upgrade
You must be logged in to post a comment.