13 Most Disturbing Moments In Goodnight Mommy Ranked

Contains spoilers for "Goodnight Mommy"

"Goodnight Mommy," a new horror film on Amazon Prime, brings viewers on a horrifying thrill ride full of suspicious behavior and unexpected twists that'll send chills throughout your body. Matt Sobel's film, an American remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's 2014 Austrian psychological thriller of the same name, follows two brothers, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nicholas Crovetti), as they try to figure out if their mother (Naomi Watts), who has her face covered with bandages after a medical procedure, is actually their mother. While the original "Goodnight Mommy" is generally well-regarded for its intriguing premise, creepy atmosphere, and wild final-act twists, this remake hasn't exactly garnered much acclaim.

Although Watts' performance is receiving praise, the rest of the film isn't being viewed as highly, with many seeing it as a subpar remake. The film simply struggles to get out of the original's dark shadow or even hit its same horrifying marks. The remake's finale also doesn't go to the same disturbing and chilling lengths as the original, making it not as memorable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deliver some good chills. Maybe Amazon Prime's "Goodnight Mommy" isn't as strong as the original, but it's got some disturbing moments of its own that are worth looking at and seeing which ones are truly the most skin-crawling.

Perhaps this moment isn't as visually or psychologically disturbing as many other scenes in "Goodnight Mommy," and most probably don't remember it, but there's a moment early in the film that sees Mother (she's unnamed in both films) read Elias and Lukas a bedtime story that can catch you off-guard. For most, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" wouldn't exactly be a fitting story to read to your kids right before bed, but that clearly isn't the case for Mother. 

There's just something so off-putting and weird about the lines she's reading and that she's reading them to her two young boys right before they head to sleep. I mean, it is fitting for her given her bandaged look and recent surgery as well as some of the monstrous behavior she displays throughout the film, but even as a horror fan, it's an uncomfortable moment that already kind of tips you off to Mother being a little weird. 

Those who have seen the original 2014 "Goodnight Mommy" were already prepared for Mother's bandaged face being creepy as hell, but newbies were not prepared for some early chills when the boys first encounter Mother. As they first enter the house, Elias and Lukas come across their "Mother" as they enter her dark room and are a little taken aback by her bandaged face — and you can't blame them. While it's a very clean look and not super grotesque, the Mother's bandaged look is absolutely chilling from the first time you see her and it easily drives the creepiness of the rest of the film. (It's a far cleaner bandage job, though, than the freakier, more skeletal Austrian version's.)

Whether Mother is simply trying to act more motherly towards Elias and Lukas or displaying some suspicious and strange behavior that makes you unsure of her true identity, this simple yet spine-tingling look makes everything Mother does so much creepier. Plus, this look adds a lot more mystery to the character and makes you constantly wonder if there's really someone else under the bandages other than the boys' mother. When it comes to creepy horror characters, Mother's look has got to rank pretty high. 

One of Mother's biggest rules for the boys is to not go into the barn in the backyard, and of course, they break that rule way before the first act even ends, and it leads to a pretty shocking jump scare. After Elias and Lukas look around the barn and Elias gets transfixed by a possible bloodstain he sees on a wooden pillar, he's quickly scolded by Mother through a surprising scare, but the scare isn't even the disturbing or scary part of this moment. 

The scariest part of this moment is seeing Mother completely lose her cool with the boys and go on a paranoid tirade. This is the moment where Elias and Lukas start questioning if it's really their mother under the bandages, and it's an incredibly intense moment that gets your wheels turning on the movie's central mystery. It's not as wild or chilling as most other moments in the film, but it's important in its own way and leaves a scary impression. 

After Elias and Lukas' initial escape plan only gets them back under Mother's roof, they go to some pretty disturbing lengths to ensure their safety and go down a dark path that brings "Goodnight Mommy" into its twisted final act. Not even seeing Mother's face without the bandages makes them feel like she's possibly their real mother, and they decide to tie her up to her bed using tape to keep her trapped.

Given how innocent and loving Elias and Lukas are at the beginning of the film, it's pretty chilling to see them take this dark survival turn, and the way Mother reacts to being tied up makes this moment even more disturbing. Her violent twisting and turning to try to escape sends chills throughout your body, and her cries for Elias to cut her free add some panicked emotion to the entire sequence. Those that have seen the original of course saw this coming, but watching Elias and Lukas take control like this still leaves its mark and kicks off a finale full of disturbing frights.

While Mother is covered up for most of the film until it heads into its final act, there is a moment where Elias is almost able to see her face under that giant face bandage. After Elias and Lukas go on the defensive against Mother, there's a moment where Elias is able to sneak toward his mother while she's taking a bath, and he takes the opportunity to start to pull off her bandage mask to see who's really underneath.

The entire sequence is nerve-racking, as his slow trek toward the room leaves you on edge, and he gets so close to Mother that you're left fearful of how things are going to play out if she wakes up from her nap. The second he starts peeling the bandage away, you can't help but feel a knot in your stomach start to form because, honestly, it's kind of gross. It eventually leads to a big scare and an incredibly tense sequence that turns up the heat to an all-time high. Elias almost peeling off the mask is a very memorable sequence that easily remains one of the film's tensest moments.

After learning the truth about Lukas simply being a part of his imagination after he died in a shooting accident in the barn, Elias struggles to handle the truth and ends up pushing Mother off a ledge in the barn. This ultimately results in her being knocked out or possibly dead, but this isn't even the most horrifying part of this whole ordeal. Along with Mother falling from the ledge, she also drops her lit lantern, causing it to shatter and for all the surrounding hay bales to catch on fire. 

It's not long until the entire barn is ablaze and Mother is consumed by the fire, with only Elias being able to escape. Given what we just learned about Elias and that Mother is who she says she is, it's a very chilling moment that leads to a pretty horrifying death and creates a disturbing, fiery finale. Not to mention, the moment only adds another scar to Elias' already fractured mind and is followed by an even more disturbing reveal.

There's a sequence where Elias screams at his Mother, believing she's not who she says she is, and he tells her that he doesn't love her, which finally makes her snap. The scene that follows of her dragging him into the bathroom and spraying him with cold water until he admits that he was wrong is disturbing in its own right, but it's taken a step further later in the film when Elias and Lukas tie her to the bed. 

Mother's screams to be set free are enough to make Elias and Lukas' dark turn unnerving to watch, but Elias opts to go for some revenge on Mother when he grabs a bucket of ice-cold water and continually dumps it on her to try and get the truth out of her. Sure, it's disturbing to see any parent do what Mother did to Elias, but there's something even more chilling about seeing Elias do it in return. It's a moment that shows he's taken a dark turn, and it's only more disturbing to think about after the truth about Mother, Elias, and Lukas is revealed. 

Although things seem relatively calm when Elias and Lukas are looking over an old video of their mother singing to them and are thinking about calling their dad about her strange behavior, Mother's sudden reappearance late at night causes everything to turn dark. In a frantic search for their phone, Mother barges into the room with force and begins to berate the two boys for the phone until she coldly snatches it from their hands.

Things get even tenser when Mother decides to punish the boys for lying about the phone by taking it and absolutely destroying it through the garbage disposal. By this point, Mother had only harshly scolded them for going into the barn, so it was another suddenly dark turn for the character that solidified that all wasn't as it seemed. The bigger reveals later in the film give her reaction more context, but it doesn't take away the chills and intensity that are evoked from Mother being so cruel and cold towards Elias and Lukas.

The best parts of "Goodnight Mommy" are when it creates some great suspense through ambiguity, and that's best proven in a creepy and unnerving dance sequence Mother performs in the mirror. After Elias and Lukas try to plant a walkie-talkie in Mother's room, their plan goes awry when Mother wakes up from her nap and heads into her room, forcing Elias and Lukas to hide. The entire sequence leaves you on edge, as there are plenty of moments when Mother almost catches Elias and Lukas, but that isn't the part of this sequence that sticks out.

Rather, it's the opening that's the eeriest, as Mother performs a weird stripping dance sequence in front of the mirror. With how little you know about Mother and the idea of her possibly not being who she says she is floating around, this sequence is creepy as hell and makes you feel like she's not completely right in her mind. It also puts you in the uncomfortable voyeuristic position of the two kids (or, well, one) hiding in her room. It's a suspenseful sequence that toys with all the dark possibilities of who Mother really is and instantly gets under your skin. 

"Goodnight Mommy's" finale literally sees everything burn down, including Elias' mind. After not only learning that Lukas is dead and just a figment of his imagination, Elias also learns that he is the reason that Lukas is dead since he killed him in a shooting accident. The moment clearly scarred his mind, and reexperiencing this ends up giving him a new scar involving his mother. While he's able to escape the barn as it burns down, his mother is unable to, and he soon finds that Lukas isn't the only person he sees now.

The film ends with Elias seeing his mother now as well, coaxing him to believe that they are going to live together forever, only further fracturing his sense of reality. It's an undeniably chilling way to end the movie and is incredibly dark and disturbing, showing that Elias will likely only get worse now that he has two bad influences working inside his mind. Maybe "Goodnight Mommy" fails in some regards to the original, but it still delivers a chilling and impactful end full of psychological horror. 

After Elias and Lukas have enough of Mother's terror, they decide to flee and eventually find shelter in a nearby empty home during a terrible rainstorm, but Elias isn't able to escape the horrors of his own mind. When Elias awakens to not find Lukas in the dark house, he begins to believe that someone else is there watching him, and he soon comes to realize that he isn't wrong. Earlier, he had a dream about Mother peeling off her own skin to reveal a dark-looking creature underneath, and that's exactly what he finds after him at the house.

The creature's design is incredibly skin-crawling, and the way it approaches Elias — like a wild beast hunting prey — is truly terrifying. Sure, it just ends up being a dream, but it's a solid scare sequence that's elevated through nice creature design and instills some good terror in a moment where you kind of think that Elias and Lukas might have gotten away.

As Elias and Lukas start to turn the tables on Mother by tying her to the bed, you can't help but become suspicious of Lukas' intentions. He's clearly got some hidden agenda with how he wants to leave Mother behind without finding out the truth and acts suspicious when it comes to ignoring the possibility of her telling the truth. Eventually, we and Elias come to realize the truth about Lukas, and it's one of "Goodnight Mommy's" darkest secrets. 

Mother is eventually able to show Elias that Lukas has actually been dead the whole time, since he was killed after a shooting accident involving Elias, and is just a figment of Elias' imagination. Those who have seen the chilling original knew the twist was coming, but it's undoubtedly one of the most shocking and disturbing moments for newcomers. It changes your perspective on the story and only becomes more disturbing with what follows. Lukas' turn to being a bad influence for Elias is built up throughout the entire film, with his joking behavior and his sudden desires for Mother to suffer, but it's still a shocking reveal.

For most of the film, you're left wondering, like Elias and Lukas, what Mother looks like under those bandages. Is she severely disfigured? Is she really the children's mom? While we eventually see that she's not disfigured, the film plays around with a different idea of peeling some layers off that's truly disgusting. Just the sound and visual of her almost peeling her bandages off at times is gross, but the film has a moment where she actually starts peeling her own skin off to reveal her as this dark-skinned creature. 

While it ends up being a dream that Elias is having, it's still immensely disturbing. As a horror fan, there's nothing creepier than some incredibly visual body horror, and because of how little we know about Mother at this point, you're not really sure if what you're seeing is real or not. It's a perfectly disgusting and disturbing sequence that's excellently crafted and plays with your mind perfectly, making you uneasy and queasy while also playing into the core themes of "Goodnight Mommy."