Second cool short film for 5/6/09: Mama

Let's just call today Short Films Becoming Features Day, shall we?

Not only is true "visionary" Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, the Hellboy movies) currently developing The Hobbit film for directorial purposes, but the guy is also attached to about 500 other projects as a producer. Okay, maybe slightly less than that number, but Mexico's pride and joy won't have a free day to spare any time soon. The latest project that he's aligning himself with is, under the Universal Pictures umbrella, a feature length extension of a buzz-building Spanish-language short film called Mama, written and directed by Andy Muschietti and produced by his sister, Barbara. The Muschietti's will be writing, with a director to be determined.

Despite only being three minutes long, Mama is a creepy, unsettling little treat. One that even made me jump in a particular moment, I'm sure you'll be able to guess which after checking it out below. Basically, Mama a scene in which two little girls flee from their mother, who just happens to be some sort of ghostly ghoul. The ghoul effects are rather effective, especially for a self-financed short film. I'm curious to see how Muschietti and del Toro expand this into a fleshed-out ride----definitely tons of backstory available (Who are these girls? Is that really their mother? If so, is she dead or what?), and more money involved means even freakier visuals. The atmosphere of the short feels very much like another del Toro-produced winner, Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (2007), only the Mama short is less "touching" and much meaner.

Here it goes:

Mama