Other Mommy (2026)

I have not read Incidents Around the House, which is a little embarrassing. A haunted-house story about a child and something creepy living in her closet is exactly the kind of book I would normally have devoured by now. That means I walked into Other Mommy with nothing but the trailer to go on, and I was a bit worried the trailer had already shown me too much. Trailers for horror movies have a bad habit of doing that, so I was curious whether the movie would have anything left in reserve.

The premise is simple and effective. Bela is an eight-year-old whose home is already strained by her parents’ marital problems when a malevolent presence emerges from her closet and begins to take over her life. It looks like her mother, and she calls it Other Mommy. Jessica Chastain plays both the real mother, Ursula, and the entity, which is a smart way to use her. A monster wearing a stranger’s face is frightening, but a monster wearing the face of the person you trust most is far more unsettling. A child’s attachment to her mother is the first template she has for what safety looks like, so a copy of that face that behaves in all the wrong ways turns something comforting into a threat. The trailer’s “You seemed lonely” line plays on the same idea. Children in tense households tend to become hyper-aware of the adults around them and hungry for comfort wherever they can find it, and a story about something that offers that comfort for its own purposes has a believable psychological hook.

I know the movie has been getting less-than-great reviews, and I understand why it didn’t land for everyone. It’s not amazing, and I wouldn’t put it on a list of the best horror movies of the year. But I also don’t think it’s nearly as bad as many people have made it out to be. I went in expecting to be disappointed and instead found a movie that does what it sets out to do, even if it doesn’t do it brilliantly. Sometimes a mixed pile of reviews says less about a movie than about how much the audience expected from it, and I suspect Other Mommy is getting punished a little for that.

Chastain is great here, as she is in everything. Playing two versions of the same woman, one of them warm and tired and the other something else entirely, asks a lot of an actress, and she gives the movie a strong center even when the material around her is not as strong. The child actress, Arabella Olivia Clark, was also impressive. Horror lives or dies on whether you believe the child is scared, and a young performer who can carry that responsibility without it tipping into over-acting makes the whole premise easier to buy. Bela has to be convincing as a lonely kid in a strained house who would reach for what Other Mommy is offering, and Clark makes that believable.

Then there are the jump scares, which I had heard were relentless. Even knowing that going in, a couple of them still got me. That is worth a note on its own, because the startle response is a reflex that fires before your conscious mind has time to weigh in. You can know the scare is coming and your body will still jump, which is why a theater is such a good place to watch horror. The people sitting next to me got it far worse than I did, to the point that I laughed more than once at their reactions. I am not proud of that, but there is a particular joy in watching a stranger leave their seat at the same moment you are trying to keep your own composure. The laughter afterward is also a reflex of its own, a way for the body to release the tension that built up, and the audience around me seemed to understand that.

My overall reaction is that I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. It’s a solid theater horror movie with a strong lead performance, a very good young co-star, and a premise that uses a child’s need for comfort in a way that stays with you for at least the drive home. I wouldn’t tell anyone to run out and see it, and I probably won’t be rewatching it, but I am glad I saw it in a theater with a crowd, because the jump scares work better when you hear a full room react to them.

I would recommend Other Mommy to horror fans who don’t mind jump scares, to Jessica Chastain fans, and to anyone who enjoys the communal experience of watching something scary with other people. If jump scares are a dealbreaker for you, skip it. If you have been put off by the reviews, I would say give it a chance, because it is better than its reputation.