Stoker (2013)

Director Park Chan-wook (2003’s “Oldboy”) makes his American debut with “Stoker,” a gorgeous, nasty domestic drama turned serial killer thriller that takes Hitchock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” and cranks up the violence and perversion to skin-crawling affect. As with the 1943 classic tale, a girl (Mia Wasikowska) suspects her romantic/handsome/suave Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) of murderous deeds after her father mysteriously dies and the uncle -– father’s brother -– moves into to help comfort the mother (Nicole Kidman). The line “We don’t have to be friends, we’re family,” sums up the story: There is no love here. This familial lot is as creepy and somber as the house they reside in. That is a double edged sword. Park and writer (and openly gay actor) Wentmorth Miller start in crazy town and stay, banging you in the head with a frying pan from frame one. Hitchcock served a fine dinner first, then took to swinging. Such is life. Hitchcock would dig the dark path of our central heroine. Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) owns the film, against the cool Goode and Kidman, who cooks up an acting storm from a role blankly stamped “frigid.” Watch it twice. Squirm. B+

Mama (2013)

Even good-enough horror output from Guillermo del Toro is better than 95 percent of the junk that fills cinemas, and so it is with “Mama.” Here, del Toro is producer, leaving the directing to newcomer Andrés Muschietti, who with sister Barabara on screenplay duties, takes on a Hollywood staple: Children held under the sway of a dark power. The plot follows two girls  (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse) left abandoned in the Virginia woods by their mass-murderer father who at the moment he is about to slay his daughters is himself killed by a floating dark form. That’s Mama. Flash forward five years as the girls -– living like animals -– are found and placed into the care of their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on double duty) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain), who has no interest in family, or responsibility. Creepy, well-played and earned scares ensue. When Nelisse crawls on stairs and becomes dangerously unhinged, it’s no exaggeration to bring up “Exorcist.” Too bad this relies on sketchy coincidences, dodgy CGI for the Mama, and illogical crutches such as men searching dark woods alone at night. (Don’t these people watch movies?) Short of great, it’s worth a watch, with your (?) mother. B