Guillermo Del Toro produces another horror straight from the “lets get some freaky kids” school of scares.

The film revolves around a husband who, suicidally kidnaps his own kids and is about to kill them before meeting a grisly end himself. The girls are then left for five years to fend for themselves with only “Mama” as company, an unknown being who seems to float and come out of black slime on the walls.

And that’s about as scary as the films gets.

Yes, it’s a bit freaky, especially when the two girls are running around the house like spiders and bending into awkward shapes.

But the “Mama” character, a being that should instil fear into your very bones…just isn’t scary.

The tension is most definitely built up but every moment that could be seen as “jumpy” is totally telegraphed to the viewer so at the last second it’s like “oh, here it is” and there it is.

I can certainly see what the film was aiming for, and in that sense it’s actually not that bad a story, but I just think its executed in a bad way.

I have seen scarier episodes of Dex