Rather than sit through Other Mommy , choose another movie
The appearance of the demon, or ghost, or entity, or whatever in a possession movie is of utmost importance. When the ghoulie is finally revealed, it can either undermine the scares or cement them in your...
The appearance of the demon, or ghost, or entity, or whatever in a possession movie is of utmost importance. When the ghoulie is finally revealed, it can either undermine the scares or cement them in your mind—it doesn’t matter that the Insidious franchise is plagued by something called “The Lipstick-Face Demon,” because The Lipstick-Face Demon first showed his lipsticked face in one of the most effective jump scares of the 2010s.
This is all to say that the goofy kid-haunter Other Mommy is never better than when it simply allows its central monster to look like Jessica Chastain. Wearing fewer prosthetics than during her Oscar-winning role in The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, Chastain’s dual performance as both Ursula, the stereotypical girl-boss mom of Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), and as Other Mommy, the demon-like creature Bela has welcomed into their home, is a treat.
Rarely are monster performers in horror movies given this kind of spotlight, and rarely do they have faces as striking and familiar to audiences. When director Rob Savage ( Host , Dashcam ) simply allows the inherent freakiness of a doppelmother to play out, Bela’s mistrust mounting around who she’s actually interacting with (itself exacerbated by her strained relationship with her busy mom), Other Mommy can be as unsettling as its most startling set pieces.
The best comes early, and likely lured many to the theater thanks to its appearance in the trailer: Bela and her laid-back “daddo” (Jay Duplass) have a very reasonable reaction when they find Other Mommy twisted up into a human swastika underneath their kitchen counter. But as the film goes on, Other Mommy (which Nathan Elston has dumbed down from Josh Malerman’s novel Incidents Around The House , turning it into Blumhouse-friendly pap) overplays its hand, giving its central entity near-limitless powers, turning a specific instance of targeted shapeshifting into something with the cosmic potence of Pennywise.
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Though this does allow for some engagingly kid-focused horror imagery, like fast-food PlayPlace tube mazes that stretch to infinity or a terror-burying ball pit, Other Mommy never understands that something that looks exactly like Jessica Chastain is far more frightening than a giant CGI monster that once looked like Jessica Chastain.
Savage plays fast and loose with the effects, filling Other Mommy ‘s clunky transitions and sweaty gotchas with overwrought digital fakery, when simple impersonation is its best weapon. In the same way, Other Mommy never accepts that a supernatural being who wants to enter into a child’s heart, whatever that means, is scarier than one whose metaphorical nature is explained ad nauseum during the third act.
As the family flees their home, running to a friend’s fuckboy bachelor pad then to the lavish home of Bela’s woo-woo grandmother (Karen Allen), the latter for the requisite paranormal investigator séance, Other Mommy strays further from Bela’s experience with her parents and wanders off through the subgenre’s other conventional pit stops.
When it finally arrives at its final destination for a “let’s go, let’s go, wrap it up” emotional climax, the absurd and groan-inducing conclusion (left open-ended for that possible sequel!) overshadows the brief bright glimmer of a high-caliber actress weaponizing her wide grin, sharp jaw, and talent for stillness.
With a lack of human logic that would make the hapless family in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy whisper “What are they doing ?” to one another and a frantic mistrust of its own star-monster, Other Mommy has been visibly condensed in an effort to produce a 90-something-minute horror that’s all killer, no filler.
But there’s barely any actual harm or threat in the movie; it’s more like a haunted house manned by an A-lister instead of some theater kids earning beer money. There’s some pleasure in that, in a campy sort of way, but it mostly makes you think that the economy must be tough out there even for movie stars.
Director: Rob Savage Writer: Nathan Elston Starring: Jessica Chastain, Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed, Karen Allen Release Date: September 25, 2026 Keep scrolling for more great stories.
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