Other Mommy called "dumb" and an "incoherent embarrassment" as it lands brutal Rotten Tomatoes score

Other Mommy may have startled cinemagoers with its jumpy trailer, but it hasn't impressed critics. The horror is now out worldwide after being released in cinemas today (9 October), but it's landed with a thud.

The film follows Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), an 8-year-old girl who lives a seemingly happy life with her mother Ursula (Jessica Chastain). Things turn, however, when a supernatural entity - that looks exactly like her mother - begins to haunt her.

Based on Josh Malerman's 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, the supporting cast includes Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen. Rob Savage, known for Dashcam and Host, serves as director, while Nathan Elston pens the screenplay.

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Though the horror has a notable producer in the shape of The Conjuring's James Wan, Other Mommy has failed to dazzle critics, with Rotten Tomatoes currently reporting a measly approval rating of 20% from 20 reviews.

You can read a selection of reviews below:

The Hollywood Reporter

"The film is missing a sense of dreadful build-up that might help its scares sink in deeper. As is, Savage's film is an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits and half-baked mythology."

Bloody Disgusting

"Other Mommy is so flat and devoid of tension that by film's end, you're more likely to laugh or groan at the absurd lengths this family will go to avoid therapy than root for their triumph over an ultimately forgettable demonic entity."

Variety

"[It] is among the most limp and ineffectual works to grace the screen this year, misfiring in every direction, including and especially its tone... Tension dissipates no matter who or what jumps out from darkened spaces."

NYC Movie Guru

"An uninspired, dumb and choppily edited horror thriller. Jessica Chastain deserves better material than the lazy, forgettable and unintentionally funny Other Mommy. In a double feature with The Babadook, this would be the vastly inferior B-movie."

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The Sydney Morning Herald

"The outline of a strong idea is visible in Rob Savage's Other Mommy, enough so to indicate why the star Jessica Chastain wanted to do it. But not enough to make this more than the usual kind of toothless Hollywood horror movie."

Culture Mix

"Other Mommy is an incoherent embarrassment to everyone involved. This time-wasting horror movie is nothing but weak jump scares and mindless characters in this mishandled story of a demonic entity disguised to look like the wife/mother of a family."

Slant Magazine

"The film plays like a run-on sentence with no periods or semicolons, packing in a series of quickly cut incidents and offering small indications of plot and characterization without bothering to languish in a set piece or fill in a backstory."

Other Mommy is in cinemas now.

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Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media.  His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and John Wick to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.