Movie Review – Other Mommy

The general consensus on this film is that it is terrible. Some even say it’s the worst movie of the year. After seeing it today, I have to disagree. We have gotten so many great horror films this year that this one hitting different didn’t sit well with critics. Is it perfect? No. Is it in my top 20 for this year? Nope. Is it going to be gateway horror for a lot of young people going forward? Hell yeah, it is.

Other Mommy is based on Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House novel which I’m embarrassed to say has been sitting unread on my bookshelf since last year. I meant to read it over the summer by was sidetracked by Victorian era horror research so I went into Other Mommy mostly blind, having only seen one of the trailers. It follows a little girl who has befriended a demon who wants to possess her. This demon can mimic the other people in her life, including her mother (Jessica Chastain), which is where the title comes from. The family leaves their house believing that it is haunted, but the demon follows them to a friends house and then a grandmother’s home – one that Chastain’s character wanted nothing to do with. Things go south at both locations so they return home to make one final stand. The little girl discovers some family history along the way that gives her a momentary existential crisis before she casts the demon out for good.

What I liked about this film was the very thing that other people seem to dislike. It’s heavy on the jump scares. The touted total is around 50, though I think that is highly exaggerated. There’s a claustrophobic tunnel scene as well as a sequence involving one of those ball pits that McDonald’s used to have. A lot of scenes where the girl can’t trust what she is seeing have witnesses but no repercussions. If I was having an anniversary party and my kid was doing crazy stuff, I’d expect one of the other guests to send Child Protective Services to check on the kid’s wellbeing. But, whatever. Suspension of disbelief and all of that.

The film wastes no time getting to the scares and the psychological damage to the little girl believing that her mother is evil is exactly what the demon wants. Tear the family apart until the demon is all the child has left. During all of this, it is Jessica Chastain that carries most of the film. Her performance sells this completely and there’s a bonus. Karen Allen arrives late in the movie to add some grandmotherly advice to her granddaughter and some manipulative nonsense to her daughter.

The film wants to make some points about motherhood and regret, but in that respect it falls a bit short. It concentrates so heavily on the scares that it forgets to spend a bit of time giving the characters deeper meaning. I would have loved to know more about the mother and grandmother’s relationship. Also, the admission about the history of Chastain’s character when it comes to being a mother at the end of the film is a bit jarring and I’m not even sure it really mattered.

This movie isn’t perfect, but it will be the kind of film kids watch too young and it’ll traumatize them for a while before the kids seek out other horror movies. Before they know it, they’ll have a horror blog and guest speak on horror podcasts spend months researching, say, how yellow is utilized in horror. It’s me. I’m that person. And you can search Yellow in Horror in my archives to find out why. Wink wink.

3 out of 5 stars. One for Karen Allen, one for Jessica Chastain, and one for that shot of Chastain under the kitchen table smiling creepily at her kid.