Blu-ray

In 2008 Andy and Bárbara Muschietti shot a Spanish-language short film about two young girls and a ghostly mother figure. This highly-effective three-minute shocker soon caught the attention of Guillermo del Toro, and before long he was executive producing this feature-length extension of the short.

Sadly, in padding the material out to 100 minutes, the Muschiettis have lost the simple effectiveness of their original. In its place we have a rather meandering tale of two young girls abandoned in a forest cabin, who are raised by a spectral entity they call Mama – which then follows them to their new home when they're found and rescued by an uncle.

What follows isn't as scary as we'd hoped and is a little too fond of unconvincing CG wizardry. But, at the same time, there's a unique fairy tale quality to Mama that marks it out as something quite different to your usual run-of-the-mill Hollywood ghost story.

Picture: Universal's Blu-ray release replicates the deliberately monochromatic look of the film very well. Blacks are deep and true, whites are crisp and shadow delineation is quite good. A slight drop in definition in a few sequences ultimately holds the AVC 1.85:1 1080p imagery back from reaching the top tier of hi-def encodes. But, overall it remains a commendable effort.
Picture rating: 4.5/5

Audio: Mama's DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix does everything you'd expect for a film of this type. Aggressive deployment of unexpected sounds in the surround speakers? Check. Threatening bass rumbles? Check. Urgent music that builds to a terrifying crescendo? Check. In fact, there's barely a moment – outside of a couple of instances of dialogue getting a little lost in the mix – where the track ever puts a foot wrong.
Audio rating: 4.5/5

Extras: The most interesting of the extras by far is Andy and Bárbara Muschietti's original spooky short that inspired this feature-length outing (with an introduction from Guillermo del Toro and an optional commentary from the filmmakers). Also included are six deleted scenes (again, with optional commentary), a couple of brief behind-the-scenes featurettes and a chat-track for the main feature by the Muschiettis.
Extras rating: 3/5

We say: This flawed but interesting ghost story manages to scare up some top-notch AV thrills on Blu-ray

Mama, Universal Pictures, All-region BD, £25 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 3.5/5