- Director: Rob Savage
- Screenplay: Nathan Elston
- Based on: ‘Incidents Around the House‘ by Josh Malerman
- Producer: James Wan
- Cast: Jessica Chastain, Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass
- Cinematography: Lowell A. Meyer
- Editing: John Cutler
- Score: Patrick Jonsson
- Genre: Supernatural psychological horror
- Runtime: 93 minutes
Everyone and their mother would be terrified if there was a malevolent entity skulking in their home.
Perhaps not seven-year-old Bela, who’s visited by her sinister Other Mommy, taking the shape of her real mum Ursula (Jessica Chastain). Young Bela doesn’t have any friends her own age. Her interests include dancing and animals. She’s a child uncorrupted by the effects of modern technology. An innocent, living in a house where her parents are putting on an act of marital bliss.
Other Mommy senses the strife and seizes the opportune moment to become carnate by tricking Bela into letting her into her heart.
Ursula is a flawed character. A mother whose pregnancy wasn’t a concious decision. A wife who is well acquainted with a man who isn’t her husband. She’s not a monster. Though it is interesting that of all the people Other Mommy could metamorphose into, it’s the figure of fallibility. Maybe it’s because mother knows best, yet Bela is closer with her father.
Amidst the body horror, there’s sage wisdom that keeps the film somewhat grounded. It teaches the value of vocalising the truth no matter the ugliness. Donning a façade of happiness may be alright with strangers present but with the ones we hold dear, it will only make a bad situation worse.
The use of colour distinguishes it from your usual dimly-lit frightfests and the scenes where Other Mommy takes command are wildly hallucinatory. The movie goes too far in its bombast during the séance at grandma’s house but a case of course correction sees us returning to the family’s suburban abode for the closing chapter, where the madness is reined in enough to let the narrative speak once again.
‘Other Mommy‘ is a mother lode of talent; Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela, Jay Duplass as her dad, while Chastain is suitably creepy as the demonic doppelgänger.
My rating: 6 / 10
