Yes, Other Mommy has Jessica Chastain in it, but that isn’t going to make me shill this review. Honestly, you can trust me.
Other Mommy is the greatest cinematic event this side of Citizen Kane. I kid, I kid, overall, the movie was fun.
The Story
Other Mommy is about a family with another mommy, no, not in the modern Hollywood way of a lesbian couple. There’s a mom, a dad, and a young girl; the other mommy seems to be an entity that only the young girl can see.
We’re not sure if she’s there for good or evil. It’s obviously evil, else the movie wouldn’t happen.
The scene in the kitchen, where the other mommy has many arms and legs, is the opening credits. It kicks right into the story.
This entity seems to be haunting the young girl and needs her love. So much so, it’s willing to kill so they can be together.
The rest of the movie is a standard affair; find out why it’s there, running away, gross kills, everyone lives happily ever after. This is very much about the journey, not the destination, which I will have to spoil a little later.
The Cast
Jessica is the bestest actress in the entire world! Sorry, sorry, I’m shilling again. I will say, she is a very good actress, though; her Oscar proves that. However, I felt she was miscast in Other Mommy.
Jessica (I think she’d be OK with me using her first name) hasn’t really made many fun movies. Most of her stuff is pretty gritty, and her movies don’t rate highly on the popcorn meter. Zero Dark Thirty isn’t one that you put on with the kids at Christmas.
Yes, she’s done other horror, Mama, which weirdly is a story about a family haunted by ‘another mommy’, but she mostly does more ‘serious’ stuff.
If anyone else was cast in Other Mommy, it wouldn’t have any of the gravitas it did with an Oscar winner in there. It felt like asking Michelangelo to paint your garden fence. Her acting is good in this, but it doesn’t work in a movie like this.
Scary or funny?
I forget how long it’s been since I have seen a scary horror, I mean a ‘give you goosebumps’ kind of horror, not just a ‘uses cheesy jump scares’ kind. The trailer for Other Mommy made it look like a scary movie, but I found it more funny than scary.
Some horrors you want to have fun with, like Evil Dead 2. Some try to scare you, like The Haunting. Then there’s the new wave of horror, with the likes of Lee Cronin, which is all about the gross-out kills.
Other Mommy tries to be all three; some of it works, some of it doesn’t. A few of the jumps are good, some of the kills are fun, but it does take itself a little too seriously, so it loses some of the comedy value. I did find myself laughing at it, not with it.
Savage
The director, Rob Savage, is a good director. I first learned about him from Host, which was made during the pandemic. Host is a solid horror movie; it’s short, scary, and well made.
Dashcam was just as much fun, although Yoda didn’t like it. He said it was pretty much staring at damp green for 30 minutes. Dashcam is a found-footage movie, and good fun.
I don’t recall much of The Boogeyman.
In Other Mommy, you can see that Savage is a good director. There are very good shots, technical shots, and practical effects. With a solid script, Savage could really make his mark.
The Script *spoilers*
Which brings me to the downside of Other Mommy: the writing. Most of these horrors are about some McGuffin that needs to be broken, reunited with its owner, break the special curse etc.
Firstly, before we get to the end, the story is all over the place. In the second act, they contact some ghost hunters, and they all die. This was a shame, as the main ghost hunter was Dichen Lachman.
The rest of the movie is a bit all over the place. There are moments where the urge to show off some practical effects and funky photography takes over what should be happening with the story.
At the end of the movie, we find out that Other Mommy is basically because Jessica’s character is a bitch. She didn’t want a child, and Other Mommy took over to make her feel ‘loved’. I’m not sure how this worked; was the entity a projection from the mother, or the daughter? I kind of missed the point.
Overall
That being said, Other Mommy was fun. Jessica chews the scenery in places, and in others, she’s genuinely creepy. There are some good moments, but again, it’s in between a messy script. The direction is good, but again, the lack of story doesn’t help.
I did find myself laughing at the movie and having fun with it, but that’s about it. Some of the effects are good, and the visuals are great, but again, there’s no backbone to the story.
Other Mommy is a good movie for friends and beers, but it’s not a ‘turn off the lights and get ready to be scared’ movie.
Rating
It’s well made, but the writing is not good.
I had fun, but not enough to return to it again for a while.
