OTHER MOMMY (2026)

Studio:   Blumhouse Atomic Monster
Director: Rob Savage
Writer:   Nathan Elston
Producer: James Wan
Stars:    Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, Dichen Lachman, Sean Kaufman, Adam Silver, Alec Secareanu, Arian Moayed, Karen Allen

Review Score:

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Summary:

A supernatural entity terrorizes a family by transforming into the disturbing doppelganger of a young girl’s mother.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Seven-year-old Bela Martin is put to bed by her doting father Russell, whom she calls “Daddo,” and her workaholic mother Ursula, who is often absent from their family’s home, which has been experiencing tension due to unspoken discord Bela has intuitively observed between Russ and Ursula. After her parents leave her bedroom, Bela says goodnight to “Other Mommy,” a supernatural entity with Ursula’s appearance who often appears in Bela’s closet and asks to be let inside Bela’s heart.

One afternoon, Ursula seemingly comes home unexpectedly to make lunch for Bela. Despite having earlier encouraged Bela to lie about how she acquired a scar, Ursula instructs Bela to tell the truth no matter what. With tears in her eyes, Ursula also speaks cryptically about the time when she and Bela were one person before Bela was born. Ursula then asks if she can go inside Bela’s heart. Realizing Ursula is actually Other Mommy because she is floating off the floor with a deformed face, Bela runs out of the room in fright.

Russ comes downstairs to find a small fire in the kitchen. He and Bela reenter the room only for Russ to be frightened by a contorted Other Mommy. Russ calls the police. The real Ursula returns home unsure of what to make of her husband and daughter’s claims of a seemingly supernatural figure that looks exactly like her.

That night, Other Mommy hovers above Bela’s bed. Bela asks why Other Mommy wants to go into her heart. Other Mommy claims that deep down, Bela knows something is amiss in her house, and Other Mommy promises to protect Bela from having her heart broken if they become one. Other Mommy assures Bela everything will stay magic forever if she agrees. Bela asks what happens if she refuses, but Other Mommy does not respond.

Russ and Ursula host an anniversary party for themselves at their house. Before going upstairs with her babysitter Kelvin, Bela briefly observes an intimate interaction between Russ’s friend Frank and her mother.

In her bedroom, Bela repeatedly opens her closet door to summon Other Mommy so Kelvin can see her. Kelvin becomes unsettled by a hand that appears in shadows, but it disappears as soon as Russ enters and turns on a light.

Uncomfortable with the atmosphere after going downstairs to the party, Bela hides in a closet. Kelvin coaxes her to come out by magically making the guests disappear. Bela realizes Other Mommy took Kelvin’s appearance when she exits to find everyone gone, glasses on the floor, and balloons on the ceiling. Bela then has an unsettling supernatural experience in which Other Mommy again pleads to be let inside Bela’s heart. Upon returning to the party in reality, Bela runs back to her room.

Ursula checks on her daughter to find out what is wrong. Other Mommy suddenly flies through the window to grab Bela until Russ enters and turns on a light. Bela falls to the floor in front of her parents, who are now convinced they are being plagued by some sort of poltergeist.

Frank offers to have the Martin family stay with him. At Frank’s house, Bela and Russ find items belonging to Ursula, indicating she and Frank have been having an affair.

While exploring Frank’s house during the night, Bela encounters Other Mommy. Other Mommy manipulates Bela into wishing for Frank to go away by asking her to think of something that would make their family happy again. Other Mommy then turns into a demonic entity that violently attacks Frank. Bela, Russ, and Ursula all witness Frank’s body explode into sparkling dust.

The Martins flee to a crowded strip mall. Bela tells her parents that Other Mommy wants to switch places with her until she can “fix” their family. Russ tells Bela that Other Mommy is lying. Ursula declares they need to kill the entity. Not for the first time, Russ suggests contacting Ursula’s estranged mother Ruth, whom Ursula considers a crackpot due to her deep interest in psychics, clairvoyance, and the paranormal.

While regrouping at the mall, Russ and Bela briefly discuss Ursula’s affair with Frank. Then while playing in a ball pit, Bela has another terrifying encounter with Other Mommy during which she is supernaturally transported to her bedroom, to an ocean, and finally back to her frightened parents. The experience ends after Other Mommy tells Bela her parents are lying and Ursula wishes Bela never existed.

The Martins finally seek help from Ruth, who summons a team of paranormal investigators to her seaside estate. Supposed psychic Lois Anthony conducts a séance that leads to the house becoming consumed by paranormal activity and also conjures Other Mommy. Other Mommy forms into different shapes and sizes as she attacks everyone before having another encounter with Bela.

With nowhere else to go, the Martins return to their home to prepare for a final, physical confrontation with Other Mommy. Paranormal activity overtakes the house. Amidst Russell being mired in supernatural chaos, Ursula confesses to Bela that she was married to someone else when she became unexpectedly pregnant. She then met Russ, and they decided to start a family even though he was not Bela’s biological father. Russ wanted to be a father more than Ursula wanted to be a mother. Afraid that loving Bela might mean losing pieces of herself, Ursula craved independence. However, Ursula assures Bela she loves her as she apologizes for not being the mother Bela deserved.

Angry at both Ursula and Russ, Bela retreats to her bedroom where she confronts Other Mommy as a doppelganger of herself. The doppelganger asks for a hug. Remembering wisdom her grandmother gave her earlier, Bela tricks her double into an embrace, during which she denies entry into her heart and tears apart the entity in a fit of rejection.

The entity reforms as Other Mommy. Although Other Mommy attempts more manipulation, Bela punches her, causing the entity to break apart and vanish.

Bela reunites with Russ and Ursula, the latter of whom promises to fix things by not telling any more lies. Months later, however, Ursula idly mentions that she will make something up if anyone ever asks how she received the scar from her fight with Other Mommy. Bela notices a look in Ursula’s eyes that suggests she is still unhappy, or possibly not her true self.

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Review:

One of my pet peeves with movies is opening on a quote. I’ve never seen a Bible verse, book passage, or famous saying on screen and then spent a single second stroking my chin to ponder how those words better position my mindset going into a film. And yet, filmmakers do it often, seemingly thinking their audience becomes more attuned to upcoming themes they currently have no context for, even though no one will remember what that quote said once end credits roll. Viewers certainly don’t retroactively reflect on how a sentence they saw two hours ago tied into what they just watched.

“Other Mommy” opens on this quizzical quote: “A chance to be human, the miracle which we mistake for the ordinary, is coveted by gods and by demons alike,” which is attributed to Anynar of Erebus. Don’t bother looking it up. Anynar of Erebus isn’t a real person and that line doesn’t come from any published poem, song, or literary work. It’s already cliché to start with a quote. It’s beyond bizarre to completely make one up and assign it to a fictional figure. Then again, “Other Mommy” doesn’t always make decisions that have its best interests at heart.

Is there any better way to introduce a film family than by starting with a sunny scene of them giggling, tickling, or playfully chasing each other around a room? Yes, there is. But why bother when it’s easier to choke on another cliché by having doting father Russ and his daughter Bela overenthusiastically dance to an ‘80s tune before bedtime, only for responsible wife/mother Ursula to break up their party with a hands-on-hips smile that says, “Oh, you two rascals!”

Mom doesn’t ruin all the fun. Bela and Russ get another chance to laugh when they take a break to frolic through a strip mall’s indoor playground later on. Mind you, this occurs after the family has THREE consecutive encounters with a terrifying poltergeist, including the most recent instance where Bela, Russ, and Ursula all witnessed a man being bloodily torn apart before bursting into glitter. They’ll process the trauma of that shocking death some other time, I guess. Right now, the ball pit beckons with its apparently irresistible siren song!

You’d think it would help the story that mom and dad catch on to what’s happening so quickly. Bela receives regular visits from Other Mommy, an entity that looks exactly like Ursula and who repeatedly asks to be let into Bela’s heart so she can “fix” the family. She’s no ordinary imaginary friend though. She’s not imaginary at all. A little over ten minutes into the movie, Russ catches a glimpse of the contorting shapeshifter, immediately rushes his daughter out of the house, and calls the police. Ursula isn’t initially sure what to make of Russ and Bela’s claims, but she sees the horror firsthand when Other Mommy attempts to abduct Bela just twenty minutes later.

It should be refreshing that “Other Mommy” doesn’t waste time getting Russ and Ursula up to speed on what Bela and the audience already know. Many horror movies might eat minutes with scene after scene of the child pleading for a parent to believe them, only for adults to routinely dismiss supposedly supernatural sightings as fantasies from a seven-year-old’s overactive imagination. “Other Mommy” never even leaves this open as an option, as it gets the entire family on the same page at relatively high speed.

The hurdle “Other Mommy” hits is that it doesn’t really know what to do instead. If it had taken the frequently traveled road, at least there would be opportunities for the evil twin to engage in nasty manipulation. Imagine the possibilities for fomenting discord by impersonating one person or another, pitting people against each other and having them question what’s real. Since mom and dad already know there’s an entity capable of duplicating anyone, any psychological element goes right out the window.

Without even the limited tension that would come with “when are the others going to find out” suspense, “Other Mommy” devolves into a series of running from one eerie encounter to another. The family flees their home to seek safety at a friend’s. Then they flee that home to go to a public place. Then they retreat from there to visit another family member. Then it’s back to the house where they first started. The story doesn’t grow in the meantime. We don’t learn more about Other Mommy either. The characters and the audience are merely waved from one room to the next in a cinematic haunted attraction.

The bigger missed opportunity comes from casting Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain in a plain part any actor could perform. Her human half is a workaholic mother secretly having an affair while neglecting her husband and daughter, which inherently requires her to not be around very much. When we do see her, she usually has a vacant expression and projects a nondescript personality. Then when she flips into Other Mommy mode, digital effects portray that half more than Chastain does.

One step “Other Mommy” skips while following fright-film formula is forgoing an Old Man/Lady Exposition character to divulge details that fill in backstory gaps. Bela’s grandma shows up in the last act, except she’s just another side stop on the creepshow tour. “Other Mommy” never has a late-inning info dump because it never explains anything about the entity’s origin, intentions, of what exactly it even is.

Based on the novel “Incidents Around the House” by Josh Malerman, there’s probably something deeper inside “Other Mommy” about how intuitive kids are, or how they’re more observant than grown-ups give them credit for, but the movie remains far too focused on effects-filled frights to do any meaningful exploration of that messaging. The film eventually finishes the motions it’s been going through since the beginning and comes to a quiet conclusion. In response, viewers complete their own routine of patiently waiting for a predictable outcome that at last ends the cycle of hollow scares and hollower drama.

I didn’t dislike “Other Mommy” as much as those who gave it a D+ CinemaScore and 19% on the Tomatometer, though I understand how it earned those low numbers. I found it to be acceptably average, at least good enough for a casual viewing on a streaming service. That said, even my lukewarm reaction realizes this is a Blumhouse Atomic Monster production that won’t be mentioned on a future film’s poster as being “From the producer of ‘Other Mommy.’”

Review Score: 50

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