Guillermo del Toro signed on to produce Mama based on director Andrés Muschietti’s 3-minute short film, a quick, sharp stab of terror following two young girls running from a twisted, ghostly figure. Unfortunately, Muschietti decided to expand the short to feature length by surrounding it with context borrowed from countless other horror films and fairy tales, and essentially lays multiple variations of the short end-to-end with ever-diminishing rewards. He does manage another intriguing three minutes at the outset: an agitated man returns home, having just shot and killed his business partners and estranged wife, to collect his daughters and make his escape. A plunge off an icy mountain road lands the family at a dilapidated cottage, where the girls are discovered five years later in a feral state. They’re adopted by their uncle (Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his punk rocker girlfriend (Jessica Chastain, in the type of role she’s not likely to take on again anytime soon), but it seems they’d already been adopted by an overprotective spirit. There’s a story to be told here about adjusting to parenthood, but first-time director Muschietti lacks the nuance to handle Chastain’s progression from apathy to Mama Grizzly. The story simply unfolds in the most rudimentary spook-show fashion, wrapping up with a happily ever after that would only hold up in a storybook.