While it may not have the ferocious intellectualism of a Haneke film, nor the social agenda of a Seidl, nor the wholly gross-out excess of classic genre horror, this heady stew of references and notions, which borrows elements from haunted house, body dysmorphia, maternal paranoia, and torture porn movies, does have a very similar Austrian vein of ruthlessness running through it. The story simply goes farther than expected, and for the first time, in the finale, after all those cleverly cut scenes that feel like they finish before they're quite "done," "Goodnight Mommy" delivers one you get to watch all the way through to the bitterest of ends. It's a high compliment the film's horror cred to say that you might not want to, though if you're the right kind of disturbed yourself (guilty!), it might also have you grinning at its sheer audacity.
