10 Horror Movies Where You Don't See The Monster Until The End

As anyone who has ever been through a breakup will tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than a ticked-off mother.

Mama from 2013 takes this idea to the extreme, as the main monster is a ghostly apparition who, after losing her own child, fostered two real-world children to fill the hole. When those kids get taken away and placed into human care, Mama gets angry.

And you wouldn't like Mama when she's angry.

This movie, which is based on an Argentinian short film from 2008, does a great job in keeping Mama's motives and appearance hidden for most of the runtime. It's only towards the final stretch of the action that she reveals herself, when she kills the psychiatrist who has been treating her adoptive children. She then comes face-to-face with their human mother figure Annabel - the girlfriend of the girls' uncle - who must attempt to convince her to let the children stay with her.

Mama is a really well-written, surprisingly deep horror with a totally kickass monster to boot. The fact that she's kept a secret until right at the end only adds to her aura, although she could have been in every shot and she'd have still been chilling.