REVIEW: ‘Other Mommy’ Swaps Intimate Chills For Bloated CGI

Other Mommy is the latest directorial effort by Rob Savage, the horror auteur best know for the underrated Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman. It’s also the feature debut of Succession staff writer Nathan Elston, who adapts the novel Incidents Around the House by Bird Box scribe Josh Malerman.

The child implied by Other Mommy is Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), the seven-year-old daughter of Ursula (Jessica Chastain) and Russ (Jay Duplass). Bela is at that age where everything feels like the end of the world, which isn’t at all helped by her witnessing the slow collapse of her parents’ marriage. It’s the perfect opportunity for Ursula’s demonic doppelganger, Other Mommy (Chastain again), to swoop in, manipulating Bela’s angst in hopes of possessing her physical form.

Other Mommy largely stands on its own against similar movies.

Unlike most films of its ilk, Other Mommy doesn’t devote all that much time to people not believing Bela. Russ sees Other Mommy almost immediately, and Ursula soon after that. Other Mommy actually has very few qualms about being seen by others, and she doesn’t hesitate to kill to get her way. Bela and her parents desperately attempt to outrun Other Mommy, picking up a few allies like Ursula’s lover Frank (Arian Moayed), Ursula’s mother Ruth (Karen Allen), and paranormal investigator Lois (Dichen Lachman) along the way. But the futility of trying to escape Other Mommy becomes increasingly apparent.

There are a few obvious comparisons, but Other Mommy largely stands on its own. It’s far from the first film to deal with an evil doppelganger or a murderous imaginary friend, but it does sidestep many of the common tropes that such films rely on. Actually having the parents believe their child means the film gets to spend most of the runtime exploring new territory, where other films only spend the climax there.

The nature of the story means much of the film rests on the performance of the young Arabella Olivia Clark. This is not a problem. Clark is a force to be reckoned with. She proved so already in Margot Budzyna’s Deuce. And when the film is smart enough to let Clark really sit in the heaviness of the film’s themes, Other Mommy does just fine. Unfortunately, this film is not that smart.

Other Mommy is a CGI mess that thinks it’s a blockbuster when it’s really a small, intimate movie.

Other Mommy has the peculiar misfortune of being a smaller, more intimate horror film operating under the misconception that it is a CGI action blockbuster. This film attempts to navigate relationships and the cost of lying to those we love. It isn’t subtle about that.

It also features a shapeshifting villain who takes on the appearance of those the hero trusts, a veritable goldmine when you’re looking for a plot device that furthers themes of dishonesty and distrust. The obvious tension comes from Bela (and the audience) not knowing whether anyone is who they say they are, and from Ursula having to reckon with her daughter’s lack of trust, even when Other Mommy isn’t in the picture.

These scenes aren’t absent, necessarily. But they’re relegated to the back burner, even though they’re clearly the heart of the film. Most of the time, there’s no real question as to whether someone is Other Mommy, because she can only stomach waiting a moment or two before transforming into a CGI monstrosity and wreaking havoc. These visual effects aren’t particularly compelling, and the resulting mayhem and bloodshed never feel as captivating as the film’s quieter moments.

Other Mommy is at its best when it focuses on character relationships.

This is especially frustrating because these quieter character moments are generally very good. Clark has outstanding chemistry with Jay Duplass, which makes the father-daughter relationship particularly moving and tragic. Even something as simple as Bela spending a few moments with her babysitter (Sean Kaufman) shows enough of an emotional connection to make Other Mommy’s subsequent interference chilling. There’s obvious potential here; it’s just often being ignored in favor of generic quote-unquote “spectacle.”

The fact that the movie is at its best when it focuses on character relationships should not be surprising. This is a film about relationships. It should have been obvious from the beginning that the film was only going to shine with these elements at the forefront. Other Mommy has enough of these moments to prevent itself from ever becoming truly terrible, but it spends too much time on big action sequences and bloated CGI to ever actually risk being any good.

Other Mommy is playing now in theaters everywhere.