New Horror Movie “Other Mommy” Fails to Impress

Jessica Chastain, in the role of the dark entity from “Other Mommy”. In this scene she is coming from the closet to hug the main character.  Photo credits: Universal Pictures

Zadie Meier Servon, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn 

Everyone is a different type of movie goer. There are screamers, talkers, snackers, and criers. The other people often add to the movie. Unfortunately even the old funny ladies in front of me couldn't add enough to make “Other Mommy” a good movie.

“Other Mommy" is based on a popular horror novel called “Incidents Around the House” by Josh Malerman. Malerman got inspiration for the book from his niece saying “goodnight, other mommy” when no one else was in the room. “Incidents Around the House” was a finalist for the 2025 Locus Award for Best Horror Novel. Sadly the popular book doesn't make a good movie.

“Other Mommy” follows a girl named Bela as she struggles to fight a dark entity that looks exactly like her mother. The dark entity's goal is to trade places with Bela so it can have a chance at humanity. Throughout the movie we see the path Bela and her family take to get away from the entity. This path leads us to many different places with the entity always close behind.

One of the biggest selling points for me to watch this movie was the trailer that went viral on TikTok. The trailer for “Other Mommy” was so good!  The jumpscare in the trailer made me gasp. The trailer falsely promised a truly terrifying movie. 

But after watching the movie, I realized that they put the best scene in the trailer and not much else. “Other Mommy" was a disappointing movie that didn’t measure up to the trailer's hype. I would say it was a 4 out of 5 star trailer and a 1.5 out of 5 star movie.

The plot was muddled and confusing. There were points when watching it became hard to understand what had happened. If the movie was intended to be an easy and enjoyable experience, it did not succeed. 

One of "Other Mommy's" biggest marketing points is the fact that there are around 50 jump scares, roughly one every two minutes. Some of the jumpscares were well done and did inflict fear, though it definitely did not feel like there were 50 of them. If there were 50 of them, there were some so subtle that they were unnoticeable.

When a movie is labeled a horror film, you want it to be scary. But aside from a few jumpscares I did not find “Other Mommy” frightening at all. The bad CGI definitely did not help. At times the CGI looked so unrealistic it was almost comical. “Other Mommy” has so far received a whopping 18% on rotten tomatoes, most likely due to the fact the movie was corny and silly rather than terrifying and frightening.

“Other Mommy's” biggest saving grace is the acting. The movie stars Jessica Chastain who did an impressive job playing the dual role of Bela's real mom and the entity. Chastain's facial expressions were convincing throughout the movie. The child actor Arabella Olivia Clark did a phenomenal job as well. You could feel the fear palpitating from her.

Most good movies leave you thinking about them or feeling something about them once you step out of the movie theater. Once I stepped from the movie theater,  “Other Mommy” completely left my mind.