Goodnight Mommy, Matt Sobel’s unnerving adaptation of the Austrian horror film, is due to debut on Amazon Prime Video on September 16. Here is an official photo gallery to share with you before the film’s streaming release that shows Cameron (The Boys) and Nicholas Crovetti (Big Little Lies) developing suspicion that the lady behind those bandages claiming to be their mother may not be who she says she is. In addition to Naomi Watt’s portrayal of the psychologically unsettling Mother, the photographs provide a glance at some of the other characters in the film. Goodnight Mommy, written and directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz from the original script by Fiala, is a gripping thriller about a pair of young twin brothers (Elias and Lucas Crovetti) who find themselves in a bizarre position when they visit their mother at her remote rural house.
The father (Peter Hermann), who we see for the first time in the photos, drops off the boys, who are shocked to see their mother’s (Watts) face completely covered by mystery bandages. Even if their mother’s story about their father never mentioning any cosmetic surgery is true, the sighting is unsettling. The lads have a hunch that something is up at first, but their uneasiness grows when Watt’s character starts imposing bizarre restrictions on them, smoking constantly, and trashing their gifts to her. Images depict the twins asking questions, avoiding direct eye contact with their mother, and even interacting with a police officer (Crystal Lucas-Perry).
The brothers begin to suspect that whatever is hiding behind the gauze isn’t actually their mother as they are trapped with this increasingly strange individual. In addition to our first glimpse of Hermann in the paternal role, these stills also provide our first glance at Mother as she reads the boys Frankenstein by Mary Shelley before bed and as she looks at herself in the mirror. Watts postures awkwardly in all directions, as if she can’t get enough of her own beauty.
In one scene, the brothers can be seen walking up to a barn close to the home; in another, just one of the brothers can be seen fleeing the same barn, which is now ablaze. The images may have sparked your interest if you haven’t watched the original, but they just scratch the surface of what this film has to offer. Kyle Warren penned the screenplay for Sobel to direct (Lincoln). V.J. Guibal, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, David Kaplan, and Joshua Astrachan are responsible for producing Goodnight Mommy. The original film’s creators, Fiala and Franz, as well as Watts, Warren, Sobel, Derrick Tseng, Sébastien Beffa, and François Yon, all take on executive producer roles. On Friday, September 16, Goodnight Mommy will have its world premiere on Prime Video.