Today, we are going to explain a horror, mystery, and thriller film called “Goodnight Mommy.”
Introduction
In the middle of a cornfield, twins Elias and Lukas play a game of tag. They make their way through the woods and into the lake, where they play a game of holding their breath. Afterward, they return to their isolated and luxurious house, realizing that their mother has arrived home.
After undergoing cosmetic surgery, their mother’s face is covered in bandages for her recovery. To the twins’ surprise, their mother exhibits odd behavior as she orders them to take a bath instead of embracing them.
She then prepares food only for Elias and completely ignores Lukas. When Elias asks her why she did not prepare anything for Lukas, she replies, “you know why.”
Mother’s Odd Behavior
Later that night, they play a guessing game, but still, the mother only acknowledges Elias, leaving Lukas sad and subdued.
Lukas has an unlikely love for bugs that he keeps a collection of them in a glass cage. As they prepare for bed, the mother confiscates their phones against their will. She instills rules that must be followed in the house while she is still recovering.
Despite the sunny weather, the mother orders Lukas and Elias to always keep the blinds closed. While the mother imposes her strict rules, Elias grabs two seashells that he and Lukas got for her as gifts. However, the mother leaves the room after grabbing only one seashell.
Before sleeping, the twins play a recording of their mother singing—something she left before the surgery. Elias gets out of bed and sees the mother inside the bathroom in the middle of the night.
When he looks at her intently, the mother glances through the mirror, revealing her bloody eyes. Elias immediately runs back to the bedroom out of fear.
The following day, the doorbell rings, so Elias calls his mother before opening the front door. He quietly walks into her room and calls her, but she is in a deep sleep. The mother only opens her eyes once Elias leaves the room.
Outside, Elias calls Lukas and goes into the basement after seeing the front door already open. In there, he sees Lukas watching over a delivery man stocking boxes of pizza in the freezer. When asked why the family ordered so much, Lukas fails to give a reason.
While the twins are busy playing outdoors, the mother stares at herself in the mirror for the whole day. After looking at the body parts that she thinks need augmentation, she tries on some clothes.
All the while, Elias and Lukas walk over to the nearby cemetery on foot. In there, they come across a hidden chamber with piles of bones.
Among the carcasses is a black cat that they decide to bring home as a new pet. At home, the mother hears them arrive and immediately wraps the bandage around her face.
She storms out of the room to check on the boys, who are now tending to their new pet. When the mother knocks on their door, they hurriedly tuck the cat under the bed.
Mom’s Aggression
The mother scolds Elias for locking the bedroom door before scouring through their stuff, confident they are hiding something.
When she comes near the bed, Elias claps to startle her, causing the mother to act aggressively toward him. She pins him to the bed and is unbothered by Lukas trying to stop her.
Afterward, she storms out of the room and grabs the keys before exiting. Later, Lukas and Elias look at their mother go into the woods.
In there, she removes pieces of her clothing as she goes further. Once she stops, her head strangely moves in different directions, still concealing how her face looks like.
The twins wake up and realize that they both had the same dream. After suspecting that the woman behind the bandage is not their mother, Elias and Lukas grab a bug from the glass cage. They go into the mother’s bedroom and place a bug on her, which goes into her mouth.
The next day, the boys browse through pictures of their mother in a photo album. After a few pages, they come across an old picture of their mother beside an unknown woman.
What’s odd about the picture is that the women seem to be identical twins, but Elias and Lukas have no idea their mother had a twin.
Finding about their Mother
They immediately go to the computer and search for their mother’s name, only to see that their house is for sale. The two of them enter the mother’s room to place a phone radio under her bed so that they could spy on her.
Back in their room, they realize that their cat is missing. The mother calls them to do chores, which they perform accordingly while hoping to catch a sight of the cat.
The mother is on the phone not long after, and the boys overhear her saying, “I won’t play along anymore.” They reach the basement looking for the cat and see it lifeless in one of the corners. Lukas and Elias are sure of their accusation that their mother is behind it.
As a parting rite, they light a candle beside the lifeless cat as they lie beside it. Back upstairs, Lukas and Elias empty the glass cage of bugs and fill water in it. They place it in the living room and submerge the dead cat in the water for their mother to see.
As they hide behind the curtains, the mother walks into the living room, seeing the twins’ act of defiance. This angers her, so she goes upstairs to get the jar of bugs and submerge them as well. Elias comes out to stop her, but she pays him no mind.
Elias shouts at her, saying that they want their real mother back. His words anger the mother, causing her to drag him all the way upstairs while Lukas watches. Lukas overhears the mother scolding his twin inside the room, even hearing that Elias should stop talking to him.
Despite his confusion, Lukas remains caring toward his brother after the scolding. That night, they take turns guarding their room in case their mother barges in.
Face Reveal
At daybreak, they wear identical clothes so their mother won’t be able to tell them apart. They hear a knock from their mother, calmly asking them to open the door.
To their surprise, their mother’s face is no longer covered in a bandage. Unlike her unmotherly demeanor in the past days, she now becomes friendly toward them.
She gives them a boomerang and allows them to play outside for the day. Little does she know, the boys have planned to escape. Once she lets them out, they set out to it. Elias and Lukas run through the woods, ending up in the train station.
However, no train is available now, so they go to the nearest church on foot. They ask assistance from the priest, but he instead drives the boys back home despite their explanations.
Back at their house, the mother is already at the front porch, expecting their arrival. Elias and Lukas are hesitant to go down the car but are left with no choice.
Finding Real Mother
In the pouring rain, the priest comes up to the mother to confront the boys. She breaks into tears, saying that her family has undergone so much recently, hence the conflict with her sons.
The priest finds her explanation quite convincing and leaves them be. That night, the mother breaks down in bed before finally falling asleep.
As she gains consciousness, she finds herself tied to the bed. The twins stand beside the bed in masks, demanding her to tell them where their real mother is.
She sighs and repeatedly says she is their real mother. The boys then confront her about the picture, to which she explains that she had a friend who always dressed the same as her.
Later, they examine an old video of their mother, seeing that her eyes are brown in the footage. Lukas and Elias use a magnifying glass to see that the mother’s real eye color is blue, but she explains that she has brown contacts.
While Lukas and Elias scour through the bathroom to look for it, they get into a fight over their mother. Elias gets up and splashes water on the mother, who can’t keep her mouth shut. He calls Lukas into the room, but he is unresponsive.
With this, the mother sincerely asks him to sit down as she has to explain something. She also asks Elias to cut her loose, but Lukas enters the room just as he is about to do so.
Shortly after, they use a magnifying glass to burn her face and compel her to reveal the whereabouts of their real mother. When a burn mark becomes visible on her face, Elias grabs an ointment to heal it before sealing her mouth.
Series of Accidents
Later that day, two employees from the Red Cross arrive at their house to ask for donations. Upon seeing that the door is unlocked, they enter the house and hear muffled noises from upstairs.
As they go up the stairs, the twins call their attention and inform them that their mother isn’t home.
Although the employees initially wait in the living room, Elias decides to steal money from his mother’s purse to get rid of them. Upon receiving a large amount of cash, the Red Cross employees leave the residence.
Meanwhile, the mother is able to break free from the tape and yells for help. However, it is too late, as the outsiders have gone home. Lukas and Elias decide to replace the tape with superglue, sealing her lips completely.
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That night, they realize that their mother is unable to eat because of the glue. As a solution, they use a small pair of scissors to force her mouth open, but they cut her lips in the process.
With her safety in the line, she cries while her mouth bleeds. As the mother is still trapped in bed, she wets herself, making the twins change the beddings.
They briefly set her free to fix the sheets herself, allowing her to escape. She immediately runs out of the house, but she trips over a booby trap that knocks her unconscious.
The mother wakes up only to find herself glued to the living room floor, surrounded by candles. Elias removes his mask, still pressuring her to reveal where their real mother is.
Truth Revealed
In tears, she firmly says that she is and will always be their real mother. She makes a deal with Elias that she will play along and pretend that Lukas is still alive from then on.
Adding that, she will still talk to Lukas and prepare food for him even without his presence. As Lukas emerges from behind, the mother explains that Elias should not blame himself for the death of his twin.
The whole situation reveals that Lukas has been a hallucination as Elias could not accept his loss. She begs Elias to set her free so that they can move on from the tragedy, but he is unmoved.
Instead, Elias challenges the mother for the last time to prove herself by telling him what Lukas is doing. He claims that if she is their real mother, she would see Lukas.
After failing to answer, Elias and his hallucination of Lukas light the curtain on fire and set the whole house in flames.
The mother eventually burns to death tragically as the twins flee the house. In the cornfield, the twins reunite with their seemingly unharmed mother.
Happy Ending
Once again, their family is complete, happily in the arms of each other as they sing Lukas’ favorite lullaby. Throughout the story, the mother does not acknowledge Lukas’ presence simply because he died in the earlier part of the story.
During their fun time at the lake, Lukas has drowned while Elias is distracted with gazing around the surroundings.
Because of his twin’s death, Elias has developed a dissociative identity disorder, making him incapable of accepting the other half’s demise. The mother’s demeanor has changed after the surgery as she also spirals into depression because of the loss of her child.
The mother has aggressive tendencies out of annoyance of Elias always talking to his brother even though he isn’t there. In summary, the mother is indeed the real one; Elias is just fed doubts by hallucinations of his dead twin.