Other Mommy Review

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster aced the marketing game for Other Mommy. Its trailer debuted before The Odyssey, and reportedly played ahead of every screening. Promoting it in front of the highest-grossing R-rated movie of the year gave them even more bang for their buck, ensuring it would get maximum attention. Especially since its trailer pulled off a wonderful little tonal shift, gesturing towards a domestic drama before dialling up the menace and surreality that define the film itself. Sure, some audience members complained about being scared before a historical epic, despite an R rating warning them to be prepared for mature content (which the later spate of parents bringing kids to an unsettling indie horror flick proves few heed). But if the minor controversy had any impact at all, it was to further boost knowledge of and interest in it. It’s a clear win, as demonstrated by its opening weekend gross.

We experience the story from the perspective of Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), a seven-year-old girl about to start at a new school. As such, there’s never any doubt of the existence of the creature in her closet, which she dubs “Other Mommy” on account of it taking the form of her mother (Jessica Chastain). But their interactions always turn towards the disturbing, no matter how mundane they begin. Either Other Mommy will change its form or it will become aggressive or ask to go into Bela’s heart, with the apparent intent of gaining a permanent corporeal form. We never learn much about what it is or how it came to haunt Bela. but there appears to be a connection with her parents’ marital strife on account of her mom’s ongoing infidelity, which Bela keyed into before her dad (Jay Duplass).

The most common version of this story would make the creature invisible to others, the manifestation of the child’s toxic environment further isolating them by demonstrating adults’ tendency to dismiss their fears. But it’s not long before her dad catches sight of Other Mommy, and soon after that her mother does. As such, they run from it to no avail, steadily increasing the helplessness as nothing can protect Bela. It’s far more satisfying, and results in much more sensible character decisions than frustrating ones.

Admittedly, little of the film is truly scary, aiming instead for creepiness. Far too much has been made of the jump scare count (including by director Rob Savage), which start fast and early but quickly taper off after the first twenty or thirty minutes for all but the strictest of definitions. That said, the atmosphere is heavy throughout, and it only takes a modicum of empathy to feel just how upsetting the intensity and disorientation is for Bela. It’s heightened by Chastain’s excellent embodiment of both roles, sure to only gradually let the mask slip when playing the otherworldly being. Early incidents demonstrate that much of the fantastical and surreal imagery is a kind of sensory illusion induced by Other Mommy, which is bad enough. However, we later see that it can teleport objects and people (at least Bela) and a whole bunch of balls from a ball pit. Why it doesn’t do so more often is left unresolved, but it’s quite effective whenever it occurs.

Bela’s ambivalence towards Other Mommy is understandable given the steadily worsening family situation; she’s delighted to have the company, but freaked out by the prospect of losing her autonomy, as well as whenever the façade slips. Ultimately, Other Mommy is a movie about the threat of generative AI, of the danger posed by a technology so sycophantic and whose boosters are desperate to grant it personhood. The creature’s limbs multiply, its face melts, it promises her the stars, and is desperate to become human. Any doubt of that read is erased when it takes the form of Bela’s babysitter, Kevin (Sean Kaufman), but gives him six fingers, a hallmark of early low-quality AI images. It’s a technology so specifically tuned to make us feel good that it preys upon the innocent and emotionally wounded, promising individuals and society feats that sound good but fail to actually solve our problems. Bela is the perfect target, in a new place with no friends and attuned to the problems of her family. As such, despite each interaction with Other Mommy ending in her terror, she can never stay away for long, even attempting to summon her by repeatedly opening and closing the bathroom door.

What does it have to say about this threat? Nothing all that interesting, just that the only thing to protect you from it is to become more world-weary, to destroy your innocence and belief in the fantastic in favor of seeking the truth. That is, to grow up. It doesn’t exactly vibe with the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves, where adults are just as susceptible to its seductions as children. The resolution of the plot isn’t any more satisfying, stumbling its way towards an ending that hints at the existence of an alternate, darker finale that test audiences rejected. We’re left with a shot so silly as to be eye-rolling, that calls to mind the end of Us but lacking all of the intent required to earn the good will for it to land.

The visuals throughout are suitably fresh if not entirely unique, consistently dream-like and unorthodox. They’re often sourced from the nightmares of children and parents alike: what if you sunk into the ball pit, or your secret wishes became reality, or gravity suddenly turned off? Even the mundane and fantastical can quickly turn menacing: a room full of balloons, a play place tunnel, the inside of a closet. Even the opening title drop is like little else, capturing Bela and her dad running from the creature in brief snippets as each letter of the title appears on screen. All forge indelible images as much for their creativity as their freakiness.

In a strong year for new voices in horror, Savage isn’t the most exciting director to praise, especially given his previous film was a bad Stephen King adaptation (2023’s The Boogeyman). But despite the widespread reaction to Other Mommy, his latest effort is better than much of the year’s competition (especially fellow anti-AI “movie” released on the same day, Appofeniacs). He sticks with his conception of the story nearly the whole way, only wavering slightly down the stretch, which is more than can be said for some of the more disappointing recent films. All it takes to enjoy is a willingness to step outside of yourself and into Bela’s shoes, realizing the power of viewing movies as machines that generate empathy.