"Other Mommy" is the worst choice Jessica Chastain could have made The Blumhouse Productions horror film is ugly, fake, and ridiculous
While watching Other Mommy, the new horror film by Rob Savage based on the novel Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman, one can't help but wonder what convinced Jessica Chastain to take part in it, although any explanation would seem incomprehensible, including the paycheck. The actress, who won an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye in 2022, might say that she found the screenplay interesting and the role unusual, a horror film in which she plays two characters, one of them a demon, and that she thought it would be fun. Unfortunately, judging by the result, we would struggle to believe her. Unless the script, as one suspects and by this point hopes, underwent cuts and interference from above that completely distorted its original nature. It's the only possible explanation before we start questioning the actress's critical judgment.
Other Mommy: Plot and Characters of Jessica Chastain's Horror Film
The story of Other Mommy could, in theory, be intriguing, but certainly not in the way Savage's film presents it: a mother whose appearance is assumed by an entity seeking to deceive her young daughter and reincarnate itself within her. If every illogical world, including one inhabited by supernatural creatures, needs at least some internal logic to function, this film couldn't care less, imposing no rules whatsoever on the monster it introduces. As a result, anything becomes possible and, consequently, nothing ever feels justified. If the story intends to focus on a demon trying to enter a little girl's heart for its own purposes, we should at least understand, first of all, who this entity is and what it truly wants; secondly, what its abilities and limitations are; and finally, perhaps, where it comes from and where it might be sent back to.
The creature in Other Mommy follows none of these principles. We don't know who it is, where it comes from, how it reached the girl, how it might leave, what powers it possesses, or what could stop it. It acts whenever and however it pleases, appears at will, and disappears without the characters having actually done anything. The more a fictional world contains an element that disrupts reality, the more carefully its actions must be structured to make absurd or improbable situations work. Other Mommy, instead, decides that anything goes, undermining itself from the very beginning and making it clear that neither screenwriter Nathan Elston nor director Rob Savage had any real idea what to do with their evil creature. The film's final result makes that painfully obvious.
Is Other Mommy the Worst Film of 2026?
But let's return to Jessica Chastain. One thought that is impossible to avoid throughout the film is how the actress will cope with having permanently associated her image with the film's demonic character. In the digital age of X, Threads, and Instagram accounts, it's hard not to think about it. From the crumpled-up version that took over the internet after the first trailer to the “chair” variation on which the young protagonist rests, featuring Chastain with an absurdly elongated neck, the concept art for the entity in Other Mommy is ridiculous rather than frightening. What's most disturbing isn't the sight of the demon trying to replace the little girl's mother, but the thought of how the actress reacted once the film was released and became the property of memes and the public.
A fake-looking monster for an equally artificial story, which is terrible not because of its horror elements but because of the writing and the way its events are constructed. A brutal murder is followed by a trip to an arcade, while after a scene reminiscent of The Haunting, instead of being afraid to remain alone in a house where several people have died, the little girl's grandmother waves goodbye to the protagonists at the door as though they had just enjoyed a quiet family dinner. Thanks to its inconsistency and complete lack of taste, Other Mommy is a leading contender for the worst film of 2026, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails at the box office. It also has the potential to become a major meme phenomenon, much like another Blumhouse Productions horror film featuring a different kind of “mother”: Octavia Spencer's Ma, who was not supernatural, just deeply disturbed.
