Other Mommy (2026)
About
A seven-year-old girl is hunted by a demon that wears her mother's face, in Rob Savage's horror film built from Josh Malerman's novel Incidents Around the House.
Bela Martin is seven, unsettled at a new school and aware that her parents are drifting apart. Her mother Ursula is absorbed in a corporate job, while her out-of-work father Russ looks after her at home. Then Bela starts seeing something that looks exactly like Ursula. She calls it Other Mommy, and it keeps asking the same thing: to be let into her heart. As the visits spread beyond her bedroom, the family runs from one refuge to the next, only to find that the entity follows them and feeds on the secrets they are keeping from one another.
Ending explained
Spoilers follow. Paranormal investigators hired by Ursula's estranged mother Ruth identify Other Mommy as a trickster demon that wants to take over Bela's life, but it cannot do so unless she gives it permission. Their séance fails and the investigators are killed. The family goes home to make a stand, and Ursula tries to break the hold on her daughter by destroying her innocence: she admits that Russ is not Bela's biological father, and that she never wanted to be a mother, though she insists she loves Bela anyway. The confession weakens the demon but crushes Bela, who runs upstairs and asks it in. Remembering Ruth's lesson that pain cannot be avoided, she changes her mind and keeps refusing until it is defeated. Months later the family hangs Christmas lights together, but Bela catches a despondent look on her mother's face, leaving it open whether anything has really been healed.
Details
Director: Rob Savage
Writer/Screenplay: Nathan Elston (screenplay), based on the 2024 novel Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
Producer: James Wan
Running time: 93 minutes
Certificate: 15 (UK), R (US)
Budget: $18-19 million
Box office: $101 million worldwide (as of October 30, 2026)
Genre: Supernatural horror, Psychological horror
Released: October 9, 2026 (UK and US)
Music Composer: Patrick Jonsson
Cast
- Jessica Chastain as Ursula Martin and Other Mommy
- Arabella Olivia Clark as Isabela "Bela" Martin
- Jay Duplass as Russell "Russ" Martin
- Dichen Lachman as Lois Anthony
- Arian Moayed as Frank
- Karen Allen as Ruth Martin
- Sean Kaufman as Kelvin
- Adam Silver as Brian
- Alec Secăreanu as Ruiss
Related
Trivia
- The film was made under the novel's title, Incidents Around the House, and was renamed Other Mommy in July 2025.
- It was originally due out on May 8, 2026, before moving to October.
- Jessica Chastain plays both the mother and the entity that copies her.
- It took the top spot at the US and Canadian box office on its opening weekend, pushing Verity (2026) down to second.
Critical Reception
Critics were largely unimpressed. On Rotten Tomatoes 19% of 99 reviews are positive, and Metacritic gives it 38 out of 100 from 15 critics, which it classes as "generally unfavorable". Chastain's performance drew the most goodwill, while the common complaint was that the film gets sillier as it goes on and its creature grows less frightening the more of it you see. Opening audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore, and the Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes stands at 48%.
Reviews
- The Guardian (Benjamin Lee): 2 out of 5 stars, finding that a tense opening gives way to an increasingly absurd effects battle.
- The New York Times: a sometimes creepy, sometimes hilarious schlockfest.
Links
Production
Plans to adapt Incidents Around the House were announced in April 2025, with Rob Savage directing from a Nathan Elston screenplay and Jessica Chastain in the lead. Jay Duplass joined the following month, and Dichen Lachman in June. Arabella Olivia Clark, Sean Kaufman, Adam Silver, Alec Secăreanu and Karen Allen were added in July, when the film took its new title. James Wan produced through the Blumhouse-Atomic Monster banner. Filming ran in Dublin, Ireland, from May 12 to July 9, 2025, with Lowell A. Meyer as cinematographer and John Cutler as editor.
Release
Universal Pictures released Other Mommy in the US and Canada on October 9, 2026. It reached UK cinemas on the same date, with a 15 certificate from the BBFC for strong horror, violence, gore and language.
Box Office
Other Mommy opened at number one in the US and Canada with $27.8 million from 3,365 theaters. Its second weekend fell 70% to $8.2 million, placing third. As of October 30, 2026 it had made $54 million domestically and $47 million elsewhere, $101 million worldwide, against a budget of $18-19 million.
