In “Other Mommy,” Jessica Chastain plays Ursula, a mother who loves her daughter, and the entity wearing her exact face that wants into the family home. The supernatural horror movie opens wide October 9.
Rob Savage (“Host,” “The Boogeyman”) directs, James Wan produces, and the script adapts Josh Malerman’s 2024 novel “Incidents Around the House.” It’s rated R and runs 93 minutes, with Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen rounding out the cast.
The whole scare is built on not being sure which version you’re watching. Wan said the fun is never knowing “Is this the good Jessica Chastain or is this the demonic Jessica Chastain?” He also called her the film’s “secret weapon. The secret sauce to this movie.”
Savage told Entertainment Weekly the entity carries a “saccharin quality” mixed with “rageful tension,” and that the impossible body work on screen is really Chastain “nine times out of 10.” He wants a new horror icon out of it: “if I can get people dressing up as Other Mommy next Halloween, that could be something really special.”
The entity, he told Empire, worms in right as a kid starts to see their parents as flawed. Chastain said the trailer’s kitchen scene hit a friend so hard he “was having trouble looking at his wife that night.”
Critic reviews aren’t out yet. But Malerman, who wrote the book and executive produced, said he was sold fast: “Three minutes in, I turned to Allison and said, ‘This is good. We’re in the hands of an artist.’”
