Other Mommy – Movie Review
Filmmaker Rob Savage burst on to the scene in 2020 with his viral Zoom call set horror film Host, announcing him to the world as an exciting voice in the horror space to keep an eye on. His following two films, Dashcam and The Boogeyman, featured aspects of his strengths, like decent scares and a solid ability to pull off some unique set pieces, but they paled in comparison to his debut feature.
His fourth feature film, Other Mommy, gained notoriety when its jump scare filled trailer premiered to unsuspecting audiences in front of The Odyssey earlier this year. It was a smart tactic – put the trailer before what was going to become the biggest film in the world, scare the shit out of the audience, and get them talking about how they can’t wait to be frightened even more when the film finally comes out. Alongside that, the build up continued when Savage himself stated in an interview that there were upwards of 50 jump scares within this 90-odd minute movie. Horror is in, and audiences are showing they love a good scare in the cinemas.
Other Mommy had some hype to live up to…
The story centers around a young girl named Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), who begins to form a relationship with a demonic entity that takes physical form in the shape of her mother, Ursula (Jessica Chastain). ‘Other Mommy’, as Bela calls this entity, has one goal in mind – to be let inside Bela’s heart in order to carnate. But as Ursula and her husband, Russell (Jay Duplass), begin to witness the entity themselves, Other Mommy’s desires become more malevolent and violent.
Savage wastes no time jumping into the horror of the premise. The opening scene has Bela interacting with the darkness within her closet, calling out to Other Mommy before leading into the jump scare scene that was popularised by the trailer involving a contorted Ursula hiding underneath a kitchen island and scaring the daylights out of Russell. Other Mommy starts reasonably strong and seems to insinuate that if the opening 10 minutes are anything to go buy, audiences will be in for a decent horror thrill ride.
Unfortunately, this is not to be the case, as the remaining 80 minutes of Other Mommy is a stitched together series of set pieces that seem cool and unique in concept, but are quite dull and scareless in execution. The film takes its dramatic side far too seriously for a movie that has some quite goofy horror logic, and the two tones are constantly at odds with each other throughout the film. On one hand, the narrative wants to be a sincere drama about a young girl dealing with a rift in her parents’ marriage, which connects somewhat to the manifestation of Other Mommy. But on the other hand, Savage also wants the horror set pieces to evoke that sense of wicked fun that can come from the communal experience of watching some scary shit at the cinema. It’s a movie that has its cake and wants to eat it, but does very little to connect the differing elements.
There is an element of Other Mommy that feels like a whole bunch of horror set piece ideas that have been left on the cutting room floor of other films, and then thrown into the melting pot that is this film. Some of the set pieces are pretty cool – a wedding anniversary party, a kids playground, and a brutal midnight murder do stand out as foundations for moments that should be scary or tense. But there is this dullness from the film’s attempts to also be a serious drama that takes away a lot of the fun that could have been had in these moments, and subsequently removes any sort of fear or dread that should be there to create the scares. The brutal midnight death feels like it’s come from a different movie, because it’s the only time the audience will actually see Other Mommy violently attack someone with a gruesome R-rated moment inside of a film that is practically PG-13 in tone.
The lore and logic of Other Mommy, or lack thereof, is also quite frustrating. The film doesn’t need to have a 20 minute flashback scene explaining where this entity has come from, but there is also absolutely no real attempt to give audiences an idea of what the hell this family is dealing with. There is an allegorical aspect at play within the third act about who Other Mommy is, but it’s an emotional plot that feels entirely unearned, even though there is an element of it set up in a set piece involving the most Insidious like rip off of mediums performing a seance that feels out of place.
Jessica Chastain is fine in her dual role as Ursula and Other Mommy. Early on, Chastain gets to differentiate between the characters a bit more with some creepy smiles and wide-eyes acting. However, the character soon turns into a more CGI-laden entity as it morphs and evolves throughout the film, leaving Chastain to more so inhabit the terrified mother role. Jay Duplass is given a far more wise-cracking role, with attempts at humorous beats that often fall flat, or giving wildly non-chalant reactions to some pretty extreme things. Arabella Olivia Clark is the core of the film, and her sincerity in the emotional moments are undoubtedly one of the film’s only strengths.
Other Mommy is a confusing and scareless film that struggles to find its narrative lane. By clashing sincerely dramatic tones with attempts at wicked horror and humour, two things that just don’t combine here, audiences are left with a dull film that feels like there is so much more potential underneath the surface.
Other Mommy is in Australian cinemas October 8
