Other Mommy Review: ★½☆☆☆ (1.5/5)
Other Mommy has a spooky idea and a promising young lead. But the repeated jump scares, mixed tone, and choppy editing make it one of the weakest horror films of the year.
Rating: ★½☆☆☆ (1.5/5)
Genre: Horror
Runtime: 94 minutes
Director: Rob Savage
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass
If you have watched the trailer for Other Mommy before every movie this summer, you already know the energy of the film. It is fast, loud, and always on the move, right down to an opening title that appears letter by letter between quick cuts.
Sadly, that busy style is also the film’s biggest problem. Directed by Rob Savage and based on the horror novel Incidents Around the House, this movie misfires in almost every direction, especially in its tone.
The story begins with young Bela, played by Arabella Olivia Clark, who already knows about the creature hiding in her bedroom. It looks exactly like her mother Ursula, played by Jessica Chastain. Soon her father Russell, played by Jay Duplass, sees the strange copy too when it teases the family in the kitchen one morning.
Here is where things get odd. Instead of panicking, everyone quickly accepts that a sinister double of Ursula is living somewhere in their home. Most horror films have a doubter in the room to build tension and mystery. Other Mommy does not seem interested in either.
The film feels like a fun horror comedy that was cut down at the last minute to look like a straight scare movie. It starts with what feels like the second act and then stays in a constant state of climax. You get one jump scare after another, and they all play out the same way.
The camera slowly circles an unsuspecting character, and then the Other Mommy appears from behind with a grin that looks more silly than scary. After the tenth time, it stops working.
The creature also never feels like a real threat. It plays more like a naughty prankster, closer to Pennywise the Clown but without any of the danger.
The movie leans on tricks involving ball pits, odd gravity, and a computer-made Chastain who melts like a comic book villain one moment and flails around like an inflatable tube man the next. There is rarely any sense of space or distance, so none of it feels real.
If you squint, there is a story underneath. Bela suspects her mother is having an affair, so the idea that Ursula is not who she seems could have been a smart way into a creepy tale about a lookalike copy.
In practice, the Other Mommy jumps between lying like a mother and pretending to be other people, and the movie drops the whole “mommy” side of the idea pretty quickly. Not much of the short running time feels guided by a clear visual or emotional plan.
The performances do not help, since each lead seems to be in a different film. Jessica Chastain goes full melodrama as both the real mother and the fake one.
Arabella Olivia Clark starts out with a natural, captivating presence, though she plays a little younger than her real age, and she seems to get tired of the whole thing near the end, which is hard to blame her for. Jay Duplass, with his “aw shucks” manner, feels like a comedy sketch character who wandered into the wrong movie.
The editing makes it worse. Scenes seem to start and end at random, with little flow or rhythm, as if the film were cut within an inch of its life. A horror movie that depends on dark corners and space should at least have careful framing. Here, the real scares and the fake-outs hit with the same weight, so tension disappears no matter what jumps out.
In the end, the Other Mommy is a bit like a daydream that keeps interrupting Bela, and the film becomes an annoying one for its audience too. It is something to wave away rather than something to feel or think about.
If you want something more fun this week, our review of Matchbox The Movie looks at John Cena’s toy car spy adventure, and for a more serious story, our review of Reporting Live covers Parineeti Chopra’s newsroom drama.
Other Mommy is now playing in theatres.