Other Mommy Movie Review: 'Your mommy won’t save you'.
“Other Mommy,” the 2026 supernatural horror film directed by Rob Savage and released by Universal Pictures under the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster banners, arrives with considerable hype. Adapted from Josh Malerman’s 2024 novel Incidents Around the House by screenwriter Nathan Elston, the movie stars Jessica Chastain in a dual role as both a strained working mother and the sinister entity that mimics her. Produced by James Wan and featuring Jay Duplass, young Arabella Olivia Clark, Arian Moayed, and Karen Allen, it promised a fresh take on maternal terror and doppelgänger dread. Trailers featuring Chastain’s contorted, grinning form under a kitchen table generated significant buzz and jump-scare reactions. Yet the finished 93-minute film largely fails to sustain that early promise, delivering a frantic but ultimately hollow experience that prioritizes volume over atmosphere. While it explores themes of parental absence, marital discord, and a child’s loneliness, it struggles to weave them into a cohesive or genuinely frightening narrative.
Plot Overview
The story centers on eight-year-old Bela Martin (Arabella Olivia Clark), who lives with her workaholic mother Ursula (Jessica Chastain) and stay-at-home father Russell, or “Russ”/“Daddo” (Jay Duplass). The parents’ marriage is visibly strained—Ursula is distant and career-focused, while Russ provides most of the caregiving with a goofy, affectionate demeanor. Bela, adjusting to a new school and sensing the tension at home, begins interacting with a presence that emerges from her closet or bedroom. This entity, which she calls “Other Mommy,” takes Ursula’s exact appearance and voice. What starts as a secret companion grows increasingly possessive and menacing, demanding access to Bela’s “heart” and interfering in the family’s life through reality-warping tricks, teleportation of people and objects, and psychological harassment. Ursula’s extramarital affair with a family friend (Arian Moayed) and the involvement of her occult-interested mother (Karen Allen) add layers of domestic drama and vague mythology. The entity escalates its attacks with set pieces involving ball pits, distorted gravity, and physical confrontations, forcing the family into a desperate fight for survival. The plot moves at a breathless pace from the outset, often feeling like it begins mid-crisis, with limited buildup or clear rules for the entity’s powers. While it gestures at deeper ideas about smothering parental love, maternal ambivalence, and childhood fears of abandonment or replacement, these remain underdeveloped amid the escalating chaos.
Performance
Jessica Chastain commits fully to the dual role, bringing melodrama and intensity to the real Ursula while going all-out as the Other Mommy with exaggerated smiles, rigid postures, and uncanny physicality that sometimes evokes Pennywise or other iconic horror figures. Her dedication provides the film’s most memorable moments, particularly in early reveals where the entity’s grin and contortions land with impact. Arabella Olivia Clark delivers a naturalistic and captivating performance as Bela, grounding the story in the child’s perspective and conveying loneliness and fear with convincing authenticity, though the role eventually seems to exhaust even her. Jay Duplass plays Russ with an “aw, shucks” everyman quality that borders on caricature, fitting a more comedic tone that clashes with the surrounding horror. Supporting turns, including Karen Allen’s brief appearance as the occult-obsessed grandmother, offer fleeting bright spots but cannot overcome the uneven ensemble chemistry—critics noted the three leads often feel as if they belong in different movies.
Technical Aspects
Director Rob Savage, known for Host and The Boogeyman, leans heavily into stylish, kinetic camerawork, circular tracking shots that reveal the entity behind characters, and rapid editing designed to maximize jump scares—reportedly aiming for dozens of them. Sound design is loud and aggressive, favoring ear-splitting stingers over sustained dread. Visual effects range from practical-looking contortions to CGI sequences in which Chastain’s form melts or flails in exaggerated ways that some found goofy rather than terrifying. Production design creates an attractive domestic setting that contrasts with the escalating supernatural intrusions. However, the relentless pace and lack of breathing room prevent tension from building organically; scares become repetitive and predictable. The score is largely unremarkable, and the overall technical execution prioritizes spectacle and volume over subtlety or coherence, contributing to a sense of a film edited into a constant state of climax.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths include Chastain’s committed dual performance, which injects energy and occasional genuine creepiness, and Clark’s strong child acting that makes Bela’s vulnerability feel real. A handful of inventive images and early jump scares deliver the thrills promised by the marketing, and the core premise—exploring a child’s fractured view of motherhood through a malevolent double—holds intriguing thematic potential about parental guilt, absence, and the darker sides of love. The brisk runtime keeps things moving without unnecessary filler.
Weaknesses dominate, however. The screenplay is thin and half-baked, with underdeveloped mythology, convenient powers for the entity, and characters who rarely behave like real people. Tone is wildly inconsistent, veering between psychological drama, broad comedy, and pure shock without landing effectively in any mode. Jump scares grow numbing through repetition, CGI often undercuts the horror by looking silly, and the emotional undercurrents about family dysfunction and maternal ambivalence receive little thoughtful exploration. The film feels disjointed and rushed, more a collection of set pieces than a cohesive story, leading many critics to describe it as limp, vacuous, or unintentionally humorous by the end.
Final Verdict
“Other Mommy” is a missed opportunity that squanders a solid premise, strong lead casting, and an attention-grabbing trailer on repetitive scares and shallow storytelling. Fans of pure jump-scare horror or Chastain completists may find intermittent entertainment value, especially in a theatrical setting with a crowd, but it lacks the sustained dread, emotional depth, or originality needed to stand out in a crowded genre. Compared to stronger maternal-horror entries like Mama (also starring Chastain), it feels derivative and undercooked. It is serviceable for a one-time viewing if expectations are low, but it is unlikely to linger or reward rewatches. Those seeking atmospheric or thoughtful horror would be better served elsewhere.
Rating: 4/10
A frantic, jump-scare-heavy horror film with a committed Jessica Chastain dual performance that ultimately feels hollow, repetitive, and underdeveloped.
