> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.helluvabird.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # I'm baffled by the negative reviews for Other Mommy - URL: https://www.helluvabird.com/other-mommy-review-jessica-chastain/ - Published: 2026-10-12T13:41:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-12T13:41:23.000Z - Description: It's not the fright fest the trailer led us to believe it was, but there's still plenty here to recommend. - Author: Connor Tapp - Tags: Culture & Media, horror, media, film reviews If I told you that I saw a lot of my own family in the Martins – the family at the center of events in *Other Mommy –* you might have reason to worry about what's going on in our household. Rest assured, we are not riven by secrets, lies, infidelity, child neglect, and demons attempting to enter our child's heart. But we have definitely found ourselves *in the shit* and made the active decision to stick together and persevere as a family. As you might be aware, [my family is in the middle of one such crisis at this very moment](https://www.gofundme.com/f/annie-tapp-cancer-fundraiser?ref=helluvabird.com). Tomorrow, we'll have been together for twenty years and, come hell or high water, twenty years from now that number will be doubled. We have taken – and will continue to take – turns sacrificing our personal dreams and ambitions for the good of the family unit. As the husband-and-wife team of Ursula (Jessica Chastain) and Russ Martin (Jay Duplass) navigate challenges both quotidian and supernatural, the refrain they return to is "same team." The trailer for *Other Mommy* was one of the most unsettling things I have ever witnessed, so it stood to reason that the movie would be a full 93 minutes of terror. But *Other Mommy* is a very different sort of movie than what I was expecting, and judging by the early reactions, I'm not alone. At its best, it's a gripping drama about a family deciding whether to stay together or fall apart – and, oh great, now we've got a non-corporeal demon trying to inhabit our daughter's body. Right in the middle of back-to-school season, too. *Other Mommy* was not pre-screened for critics, so audiences, myself included, really did not know what they were getting into. But the unique intrigue around the teaser trailer – which premiered during *The Odyssey* and has since racked up over 30 million YouTube views – combined with Jessica Chastain's star power built up some serious buzz. Then the full trailer spent a lot of time boasting about its producers' credits and I started to get worried. This is often a telltale sign of a movie that doesn't have the juice and knows it. I normally try to go into a movie with as few preconceptions as possible. But given the complete lack of information, I couldn't help but skim a few reviews. One line that lodged in my mind was "Jessica Chastain's worst movie." Yikes. By the time I walked into the theater on Friday morning, I truly had no idea what to expect, but my expectations were low. I kept waiting for the movie to unravel into farce, as I had been assured that it would – but it just kept not happening. I had recently watched the truly abysmal *Freddy vs. Jason* (2003) for [The 31 of October](https://www.helluvabird.com/31-of-october-phoebe-bridgers-obsession/) and found myself cackling at the stupidity of the protagonists' grave certainty about what needed to be done. *Obviously, the move is to sedate the unkillable but, apparently, eminently tranquilizable Jason Voorhees and haul him to Camp Crystal Lake for home-field advantage against Freddy*. How refreshing, then, to see the Martins, in a fleeting moment of respite, express complete befuddlement about how to manage their own crisis. When Russ and Ursula turn to their daughter, Bela, for clues about how to defeat the demon, I felt a pang of recognition. I was reminded of every single time I have attempted to sluice a single drop of information about what happened at school that day out of my son. Other Mommy is very interested in carnations, Bela explains, leaving out a prefix that completely changes the word's meaning. During that same conversation, Bela sees another girl having fun in the ball pit, and the mere sight of an outwardly happy girl (you can probably guess who the girl ends up being) makes Bela smile, despite everything. This is a movie with a deep understanding of and evident affection for how children perceive and interpret their world. How the signals they're receiving from adults can be overwhelming but nevertheless decipherable, even if that information ends up being filtered through a complex web of inchoate kid-logic. None of this would work on-screen without a stellar performance from Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela, who the camera stays close to during most of the movie. Bela's understanding of what's *really* going on with her parents plays out mostly on her face – a tall task for a nine-year-old, but one that Clark proves herself more than capable of handling. ## Sign up for Hell of a Bird Essays on politics, media, film, and sports history by Connor Tapp. And soon: subscriber-exclusive podcasts. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. The movie has flaws – big ones, mostly having to do with the CGI villain. Other Mommy (the character) loses her bite late in the film, when it starts to become fairly obvious why she's there and what the family will need to do in order to cast her out. The third act is a bit of a jumble and there are moments where it feels like two different movies, the family drama struggling to connect with the supernatural horror. But I'm not prepared to impose too harsh a penalty for a bit of a wobble on the landing. With no critics' screenings, reviewers walked in expecting the 93 minutes of pure terror the trailer promised, and graded the movie against that. In the end, the marketing campaign may have sold a lot of tickets on opening weekend, but it doomed *Other Mommy*'s Metacritic score. Oh well. Letting *Other Mommy* inside my heart will just have to be our little secret. Look for more discussion of *Other Mommy* on forthcoming episodes of *Hey Brother*.