Dir. Rob Savage · 2026 · 93 min · in cinemas
Bela is a young girl in a large, unhappy house. One night something appears that looks exactly like her mother and asks permission to become human. Jessica Chastain plays both the real mother, Ursula, and the thing wearing her face, with Jay Duplass as the father and Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela. Nathan Elston wrote the script from Josh Malerman's novel Incidents Around the House, and Universal released it on 9 October 2026, from the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster stable.
That is as far as this review goes. Nothing below discusses the ending.
Almost every critic who disliked the film still singles out the same two things. The first is Chastain, who gets to be warm and wrong at the same time: reviewers describe the title creature's coos and reassurances as the film's best weapon, and one calls her "genuinely terrifying" in the role. The second is Clark, whom several writers credit with carrying the emotional load and making the family's fear believable.
The idea is a good one. A child who half wants the impostor, because the real parent is cold, is a sturdy engine for a haunting, and the film's pitch is that this is imaginary-friend horror with real hurt underneath. At around 90 minutes it also moves fast, and even the harshest reviews admit it is hard to be bored.
This is where critics pile on. The recurring complaints are pace, CGI and borrowed scares: scenes end abruptly before tension can build, jump scares multiply until they annoy, and the effects-heavy creature work swaps intimate dread for noisy chaos. Several reviews say the script runs on familiar haunted-house and imaginary-friend beats, and that the family is thinly drawn beyond one trait each.
Other Mommy may be one of the most frustrating horror films I've seen all year.
Matt Konopka, Dread Central
Critics do not entirely agree. A few write it up as a lively, silly multiplex ride with a star in full cry, the kind of film that works best with a loud crowd, while others call it a rushed collage of better movies. The balance is clearly towards the second view: one aggregator report put it at 18% fresh on 28 reviews shortly after release.
If you like creature effects, jump scares and a big theatrical performance, and you will forgive a thin script, this may pass an evening. If what you want from horror is slow, patient dread, the reviews suggest you will be frustrated, and one of the films in our list for people who hate jump scares is a safer bet.
Our score of two out of five sits with the mixed-to-negative majority: a strong central performance and a good premise, held back by pace and a script that never earns its scares.
It is in cinemas now, released in the US and UK on 9 October 2026. Availability and release dates vary by country, so check your local listings.
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