Other Mommy

by Mike McGranaghan

Other Mommy is one of those movies that makes for a great two-and-a-half-minute trailer, but when you see the whole thing, you realize how much it doesn’t work.

Ursula (Jessica Chastain) and husband Russ (Jay Duplass) have a strained marriage that they try to hide from 7-year-old daughter Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark). That becomes harder once a bizarre paranormal event begins occurring at their home. Bela starts seeing a trickster demon who looks exactly like Ursula and is seeking to enter the real world by exchanging realms with the girl. Other Mommy, as Bela dubs her, begins terrorizing the family, morphing her face in creepy ways as she behaves violently.

Movies like this must establish an internal logic to succeed. The audience needs to understand what the rules are – what the paranormal figure can do, how it generally operates, the way its dark magic works, etc. In this department, Other Mommy fails. It’s never quite clear why she’s targeted Bella. Even more confusingly, her powers seem to present themselves at random, occasionally making no sense.

Here’s a non-spoilery example: There’s a scene where Other Mommy drags Bella down into the ball pit at a family fun center. During this incident, some of those balls begin filling up Ursula and Russ’s car out in the parking lot. What is her objective in doing that? How is she able to transport objects from one place to another? The film is packed with illogical stuff along those lines. Being scared by the character is tough when her abilities are so nebulous.

Watching the movie, I couldn’t escape the feeling that it was once longer. Other Mommy makes her initial attack within the first ten minutes, before we’ve had a chance to grasp the family dynamic. Other sections, including a sequence where the family goes to the home of Ursula’s mother (Karen Allen) for a séance, seem truncated. All of a sudden, grandma is just introduced, her obsession with the paranormal coming off as more of a plot convenience than a legitimate story point. Strain in the Ursula/Russ marriage is similarly glossed over. It plays as though a lot of exposition was chopped out to get to the horror elements more quickly.

In a way, it’s understandable. The visual effects are the best part. Other Mommy’s face alters itself in shocking ways. Her body contorts itself ominously. Visual effects used to convey her attacks and their aftermath are brilliantly done. There’s a shot in here that reminded me of the famous “exploding head” bit from David Cronenberg’s Scanners, but possibly even more gross. Some entertainment is generated from these moments, although they’d have more power as part of a coherent plot.

You also have to hand it to Jessica Chastain. She dives right into this demented character, creating her own chilling faces without CGI. The actress is genuinely menacing. Too bad she’s also stuck in a rambling picture that’s not nearly as committed to delivering the goods as she is.