Some will debate the pertinence of a movie starting with a quote, but I found myself particularly amused by how Rob Savage’s Other Mommy begins with a line attributed to Aynar of Erebus, stating, “A chance to be human, the miracle that we mistake for the ordinary, is coveted by gods and demons alike.” To be honest, and in the context of the movie, the quote makes sense. Too bad Savage’s second attempt at a Hollywood blockbuster (after 2023’s horrendous The Boogeyman) showcases how truly inept he is at crafting tangible scares – or genuinely impassioned setpieces – without resorting to unimpressive gore and baffling narrative mechanics.
The worst part is that the plot functions as a fun genre exercise. It’s Savage’s screenwriting and directorial decisions that hamper it at every turn. The movie begins in media res, with the Martin family already haunted by a creature known as ‘Other Mommy ’, a fascinating choice. The cold open is creative enough to warrant our attention throughout. Savage’s camera is always moving, building tension as the Martin family’s young girl, Isabela (Arabella Olivia Clark), speaks to a supernatural entity that takes the form of her mother, Ursula (Jessica Chastain).
Bela is the only one who knows Other Mommy’s existence, until the family’s father, Russell (Jay Duplass), comes face-to-face with her during an admittedly hilarious and appropriately nasty kitchen sequence. It’s the film’s only creative scene, because the rest of Other Mommy quickly begins to contradict itself as soon as the entity takes the shape of someone, well, other than the mommy.
I will give Savage credit for at least trying to do something different than The Boogeyman, as he figures out how to operate in a film that isn’t his screen-life masterpieces Host or DASHCAM. But he seems to struggle to translate unwieldy ideas into potent images, even if cinematographer Lowell A. Mayer’s camera is bracingly kinetic. I don’t think I’ve seen a camera move as much in a 2026 mainstream horror movie as in this one. There’s a great desire to attempt to blur Bela’s horrifying nightmares with reality, to the point where she can never fully trust her mother, but that quickly dissipates. At some point, the film’s scares get redundant because nothing much is added beyond sequences that float between dreams and reality, and it becomes obvious who the real Ursula is and who isn’t.
Whenever the movie adds characters beyond its core trio – whether Ursula’s business partner Frank (Arian Moayed), who may or may not have a romantic relationship with her, exorcist Lois (Dichen Lachman), and Grandma Ruth Martin (Karen Allen) – one thinks Savage will meaningfully integrate them into the mix. Both Duplass and Chastain are quite decent in a movie that gives them absolutely no favors. It’s a testament to their singular talent as actors, even if the dynamic between the two gets redundant, as the film always tries to keep them on edge. Yet, none of the supporting characters have a shred of impact. They appear and quickly leave the picture, even when Savage shifts gears for a bit and turns his premise into something more otherworldly.
As soon as Lachman’s exorcist appears, Other Mommy turns into Ghostbusters. When we get into Frank’s house, it becomes a tawdry revenge thriller. As for Grandma Ruth, she certainly has an impactful conversation with Bela, but it’s so brief that it barely registers as essential. Imagine wasting Arian Moayed, Dichen Lachman, and Karen Allen. Why bother casting them in the first place if you’re not going to give them anything meaningful to do? None of them have an impact, and they only seem like skeletons of characters that could potentially work if Savage would just stop continually attempting to make his audience jump, which he seems proud of doing, but there isn’t anything formally (and aurally) interesting about endless jump scares
According to the director himself, Other Mommy features about 50 jump scares, and none of them are remotely ingenious. Such a device gets so tiresome that one yearns for Savage to add something else – literally anything else – to the action. We barely get time to gel with Bela, who seems to be the film’s heart and soul, but since the film is so busy bludgeoning us to death with jump scares, it forgets to draw tangible characters whom we want to root for as they face a demonic entity that doesn’t seem like it wants to die, or, very simply, leave the family alone.
All of this probably would’ve been fine if Savage didn’t take the route of the dumb giallo-esque twist near Other Mommy’s end that retroactively makes everything that came before far worse than it already is. You’ll even wonder why you subjected yourself to such drivel and why you’re even doing what you’re doing, considering that this film criticism endeavor isn’t paying the bills. Maybe someday it will. For now, however, life is far too short to waste my time writing about a movie everyone will forget exists in a week.
Other Mommy is now in theaters.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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