Other Mommy

The trailer for the movie Other Mommy went viral when it dropped a few months ago. It dominated the box office this weekend, but was panned by critics. But is it really one of the worst movies of the year? It’s about a 7-year-old girl who is visited by a mysterious entity who takes the form of her mother, played by Jessica Chastain. It’s a lean, intense horror film full of dark family secrets and grisly body horror. Looking for more horror films? Check out these episodes: ‘It Ends’ is horror as hangout https://www.npr.org/2026/09/01/nx-s1-5947939/it-ends-is-horror-as-hangout 'Backrooms' brings YouTube horror to the big screen https://www.npr.org/2026/06/01/nx-s1-5838026/backrooms-brings-youtube-horror-to-the-big-screen In ‘Obsession,’ love hurts. It really, really, really hurts. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/15/nx-s1-5822305/in-obsession-love-hurts-it-really-really-really-hurts Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:34Speaker 02

  I feel like the discourse that I've been seeing around the movie is that people are saying it's the worst movie of the year.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  And listen, I watch a lot of bad movies, so.

• 0:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  You're a connoisseur.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I come down a little bit more metered. I have a little bit more of a metered reaction than those people. But I think there's an element here to Other Mommy that is missing.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  The trailer for the movie Other Mommy went viral when it dropped a few months ago. But now that it's in theaters, is this really one of the worst movies of the year? It's about a seven-year-old girl who's visited by a mysterious entity who takes the form of her mother, played by Jessica Chastain. It's a lean, intense horror film, full of dark family secrets and grisly body horror. I'm Stephen Thompson. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Rihanna Cruz, there a freelance music and culture journalist. Hey, Rihanna.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Hey, Stephen. Happy to be here.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Good to see you again. Also with us, journalist and host of the movie review podcast, seated, Travell Anderson. Hey, Travell.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Hello, hello.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  It is a delight to see you both. So Other Mommy centers on a girl named Bella, who's haunted by a creepy entity that bears an uncanny resemblance to her frequently absent mother. Bella is played by Arabella Olivia Clarke, while her parents are played by Jessica Chastain and Jay Duplass.

• 1:56Speaker 04

  Can I go into your heart?

• 2:01Speaker 04

  You said you want me, five-year-old. You seem lonely.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  At first, it seems to simply be haunting their house, so the family flees, only to discover that Other Mommy isn't quite so easy to shake. Other Mommy was directed by Rob Savage, who also directed Host and The Boogeyman. It's in theaters now. Rihanna, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of Other Mommy?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  So, watching Other Mommy, I had a very frustrating experience, I think. I think it's a very frustrating movie. I think there's moments where Other Mommy stumbles into greatness. And I want to lead with that, because there's moments in here that are great horror set pieces. There's one in like a playplace ball pit type situation that I really liked. There's another where they go to their family friend's house and hijinks ensue. There's really great moments of body horror and possession and things like that in there. I was very frustrated, because it feels like the movie doesn't fully commit to anything,

• 3:05Speaker 02

  and it doesn't lean in any particular direction. And so we're left with something a little half-baked. There was a world where the movie goes full hagsploitation. I wanted to see that. I wanted to see Jessica Chastain in the ma-type universe.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  But instead, we get these great moments that are immediately undercut by goofiness. And not even so bad it's good goofiness, but goofiness that takes me out of the narrative. There's one moment where there's this really intense set piece. And then the demon leaves, and it leaves by exploding into a glitter bomb. And I was like, okay, you kind of took me out of it. And I kind of had this experience throughout the movie. There's no context, there's no particular direction the movie wants to go. And so I felt very frustrated while watching, because I think it could have been greater. But unfortunately, it was a very disappointing movie.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Okay. How about you, Travell?

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I'm right there with you with Rihanna. I wanted to love this movie. I really did. Jessica Chastain is one of my favorite white lady actresses, okay?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  She's got great range, great talent. I wanted to love this. But the story, I feel like the material that she has to work with is quite thin, unfortunately. And the story doesn't really go too much further than what we saw in the trailer. And I think that's quite disappointing, right? Like, perhaps best, biggest jump scare moment of the movie is in the trailer for the film, and also happens, you know, early in the movie. To your point, really frustrating.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  I wanted so much more for Other Mommy. I really did.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  We all want so much more for Other Mommy. At the risk of redundancy, I just agree so much with what you're both saying. And all the way up to what Rihanna was saying about, there are a couple of effective set pieces here. For me, I thought the scene in the kind of off-brand Chuck E. Cheese.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Was pretty effective, in part because it understands that, like, there are some visually striking elements of a place like that that you can use for strong visual effect, particularly ball pits. This movie understands that ball pits are creepy, and that you can play with color using that setting in ways that can really enhance the horror. I thought that was an effective scene. I appreciated the fact that this isn't just a haunted house movie. It kind of takes it on the road a little bit, and so you get some different settings that allow them to play with things. I thought there were some interesting ideas in the scene set at grandma's house, you know, where they bring in kind of paranormal investigators. There are ideas there.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  And I think that when you bring in Jessica Chastain for a role like this, you are suggesting that you are elevating your horror in some sense, because she is an Oscar-winning actress. And I think that, like, they do some interesting things with her face and her kind of ability to contort her face. But honestly, none of it coheres into anything memorable. Nothing coheres into anything you really haven't seen before. It felt, to me, very flimsy. It just didn't add up to anything beyond kind of a paint-by-numbers, there-is-a-terrifying-entity horror movie.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Well, this is where I jump in to say, right, that the people in my theater clapped when it was over.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that can mean one of two things, right?

• 6:45Speaker 03

  I mean, could it? They seemed to enjoy it. They seemed-- and I was gagging. I was like, oh, wow, you know? They seemed to enjoy it. And so, you know, there's part of me, I should also know, I don't do spooky-yuki movies, okay? I am that person who looks through my fingers. I take off my glasses, so it's all a little blurry. It helps me sometimes, right? And so I do think there are some of those horror elements. There are some effective jump scares. I think there is something about this movie that regular people, right? If I took my mama to see this, you know, I think she would have a very different response, right, than mine, right?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  As somebody who knows who Jessica Chastain is by name, I can tell you just about every movie she been in over the last decade. You know what I mean? And I have something, I'm looking for something else, something more, something weighty. My mother's not looking for that. I think my mother would really enjoy this.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if that's a read, or like.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  But there are these kinds of movies, right, where like, you know, those of us with whatever critical takes that we may have, that we look at and we say, eee, yuck, right? But the public, for whatever different reason, they're coming at it from a different vantage point? I think there's a lot of people, like the people who was sitting next to me, who were jumping through it all, laughing at the awkward, you know, humored moments. They were in it.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we've got more thoughts about our Other Mommy after the break.

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• 10:10Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Rihanna, what are you thinking about?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  I feel like the discourse that I've been seeing around the movie is that people are saying it's the worst movie of the year.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Listen, I watch a lot of bad movies, so.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  You're a connoisseur.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I come down a little bit more metered. I have a little bit more of a metered reaction than those people, but I think there's an element here to Other Mommy that is missing. And when I was watching it, I noticed that all of the characters at every point believe what's happening. And I think that's a problem. There is no skepticism in Other Mommy. There are no characters that are like, wait, is this actually happening? I don't believe you. And I think that tension is essential to sustaining a demon movie, something with paranormal and supernatural elements. That's not here. We kind of start the movie and we're already in it.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  There's no buildup. There's no context, like I said, no setup. It just kind of starts and Other Mommy is there and everybody believes what's happening. And I think when you watch other possession movies, there's always that person to provide a little bit of tension that's like, ah, like, I don't believe in demons. I don't believe in supernatural stuff, but that's not here. Everybody's full sail, like, oh, yeah, totally. Like, that is a demon and it does look like Jessica Chastain.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  It's interesting because I sometimes complain in movies that are kind of overstuffed with lore. There's a demon. They're fighting the demon. I don't need you to tell me 20 minutes of backstory about the demon.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I'm a little torn and I feel like a little bit of a hypocrite, sort of saying, like, this movie shorthands so much.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It does not really tell you anything about these characters until things are kind of underway. There's a lot of, like, very kind of quick shorthand. You get a sense, like, actual mommy is, you know, kind of spends too much time at work, isn't really there in the house. You can tell immediately she's having an affair, in part because they cast Jay Duplass, who seems to only be cast in things where his partner is unsatisfied.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I am screaming, Stephen.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  I mean, I've seen him in Sterling Point. I've seen him in Dying for Sex. He just keeps popping up in these things where it's just like, oh, wife's cheating.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  So part of what you get is like, at least it's kind of lean, right? It's not necessarily doing a whole bunch of throat clearing before it kind of gets to the movie, but at the same time, it's not really giving anything to hang your hat on. So it feels very skeletal and just like checking boxes and kind of doing the bare minimum. And so you're not really emotionally invested then in some of these, like, these larger themes that come through about dark family secrets.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Absolutely. That is perhaps the most frustrating part about this movie, right? Is I think there are really interesting flourishes. There, you know, I think that there are highlights of Jessica Chastain's, you know, performance. Probably the best performance in the movie. I'd give her that.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Bar is on the floor.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I think the kid is good.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  I disagree.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. So for me, I felt like so much of this movie actually rests on the kid character and her angst and her dread and what's happening in her head. And for me, that is where it didn't hit for me in most of the scenes where we got her.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Part of the issue that I had with the movie as a whole is like, it did the worst thing it could possibly do when I'm watching a movie, which is make me think of other better movies.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  And I was watching it and I was like, oh, okay, like, I wish I was watching The Babadook. I wish I was watching Ma with Octavia Spencer. I wish I was watching Smile.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Hereditary.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Right, right. Like, any of these movies, I didn't think the kid performance was great because I was thinking of The Sixth Sense and Hailey Joel Osment's performance in that. And that has so much nuance in it. We're not dealing with a one-to-one comparison of like demons and ghosts, but still, like, I was hoping for a little bit more dimension to that performance and to the whole movie, you know? I hate watching a movie and I'm like, oh, okay, like, I could be watching this better movie that handles these themes in a better way.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I thought she was fine. I mean, I think the fact that she's a little bit, when she feels like a little bit of a cipher, that is kind of there in part to keep things a little mysterious, where you can't entirely tell what's happening. And I do think it's important to kind of keep some air of like, what are we dealing with here?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  A kid who at times feels a little remote, I think that was able to kind of maintain my interest for a little bit longer than maybe a more emotive performance might have given me. I did want to ask, because like, there were a couple scenes in this film where as I was watching them, I definitely thought like, bleh, I'm going to think about that for a minute. And then I kind of haven't.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Right, exactly, exactly, Stephen.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Is there anything in this movie that's going to stick with you?

• 15:28Speaker 03

  I mean, I do think Jessica Chastain and with the really creepy smile and the tears dripping, you know, certainly you've seen that in various different ways in other movies, but I was like, oh, I like to see your version, you know? That was interesting to me. I might see a flash of that in my nightmares every now and again.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  I am thinking of certain scenes, but perhaps not in the way that you're suggesting. I am thinking of them because they made me laugh, because they're goofy. There's one scene where this lady touches the demon and she deflates like that old Capri Sun commercial.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  And I giggled. Sorry, I giggled. And that being said, I did come home alone because my partner's out of town and kind of just stood there and scanned the house to see if there was an other presence. So I don't know, maybe it did the trick.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Rihanna Cruz, Trey Vel Anderson, thanks so much for being here.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Thank you, Stephen.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Thanks for having us, Stephen.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathama, Lennon Sherburne, and Mike Katzith, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.

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