'Other Mommy' Review: Chastain Horror Misfires — SkimNews
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- "Other Mommy" is directed by Rob Savage, adapted from the horror novel "Incidents Around the House," and runs 94 minutes, with the reviewer calling it "among the most limp and ineffectual works to grace the screen this year."
- Jessica Chastain plays both the real Ursula and the demonic Other Mommy, with the role described as going "for broke with melodrama" but delivering a grin that's "more goofy than unsettling."
- The film's horror mechanics rely on a recurring camera trick — tracking around unsuspecting characters in a circle to reveal the Other Mommy — with the reviewer noting all jump scares "unfold pretty much the same way" and "grow quickly stale."
- Arabella Olivia Clark plays adolescent protagonist Bela, whose suspicion that her mother is having an affair provides the film's entry point; the reviewer praises her "captivating, naturalistic presence" but says she "seems to get exhausted by the premise."
- Jay Duplass plays father Russell, whose "aw, shucks" demeanor reads as "a broad caricature out of a comedy sketch," with each of the three leads seemingly "belong[ing] to a markedly different movie."
- The doppelgänger premise collapses as the Other Mommy ping-pongs between impersonating Ursula and wholesale impersonations of other people, with the film "abandon[ing] the 'Mommy' half of its premise before long" and offering "no visual or emotional idea" guiding its 94 minutes.
- No human character behaves like a real person: when the parents glimpse the monster contorting into a swastika in their kitchen, they "readily accept" its existence, eliminating the skeptical-naysayer tension common to the genre.
Why it matters: The reviewer's verdict is that 'Other Mommy' delivers neither scares nor emotional stakes — its characters don't act like real people, its jumps all land the same, and its doppelgänger hook is dropped halfway through. For Savage and the studio backing a Chastain-led horror adaptation of a published novel, the takeaway is a critical takedown of a release that the reviewer frames as tonally incoherent from its opening title card onward.
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