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‘Other Mommy’ Early Reviews Are In, and the First Reactions to Jessica Chastain’s Horror Movie Are Brutal

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Horror season has a way of building its own momentum, and ‘Other Mommy’ arrived with more buzz than most. A viral trailer, a creepy smile that fans couldn’t stop talking about and Jessica Chastain in a dual role gave it the feel of a genuine spooky-season event.

The film also had a pedigree that made fans curious. Rob Savage directs from a screenplay by Nathan Elston, James Wan produces under the Blumhouse Atomic Monster banner, and the story adapts Josh Malerman’s novel ‘Incidents Around the House’. With a 93-minute runtime and an R rating, it looked like a lean, scare-first crowd-pleaser.

Now the first ‘Other Mommy’ reviews are rolling in, and the early verdict is far harsher than the marketing suggested. The film opens in theaters on October 9, and the initial critic reactions lean heavily negative, even if the picture is still taking shape.

Rotten Tomatoes had logged only two critic reviews at the time of writing, which means no Tomatometer score has been established yet. Both were unfavorable. Simon Foster of Screen-Space gave the film 1.5 out of 5, calling it ponderously paced and over-directed, with a half-baked message that reaches for “elevated horror” and falls short of the films it imitates.

Peter Gray of The AU Review gave it 2 out of 5 and described a movie that makes a strong entrance but has no idea what to do next. In a separate reaction, Gray called it an ‘Insidious’-lite supernatural flick that is more silly than scary, with one surprisingly gory sequence. He credited Chastain for committing to the material, but said that wasn’t enough to overcome the stupidity.

Variety’s Guy Lodge struck a similar note, suggesting the film arrives already behind the genre’s curve.

Early viewers on social media were just as rough. One described the film as truly dreadful, pointing to one of the silliest horror plots of the year, a weak script, ineffective jump scares, bad CGI and a finale that drew unintentional laughter several times. Another said it wasn’t worth a trip to the cinema and that the jump scares were cheap, adding that they mostly watched for Chastain.

Global Box Office gave the film 2.5 stars and called it a hot mess, a clumsy blend of melodrama and failed jump scares in one of Chastain’s weakest outings in years. Their review said the directing is sloppy, the score unremarkable and that not even Chastain can rescue the screenplay. It also criticized the explanation for why the entity is so fixated on the child as unconvincing.

Still, the reaction isn’t unanimous. One early viewer gave the film a 7 out of 10, calling it a good, fun movie and saying Chastain’s uncanny faces are genuinely creepy. They said the film loses steam once it leans into its CGI demon, but praised it for being experimental and willing to actually kill people on screen.

That same viewer noted that a few moments feel lifted from other horror films, and questioned some of the logic in the final act. It’s a mixed assessment, though a far warmer one than the critic scores so far.

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The reviews land at a delicate moment for the film’s commercial prospects. Universal is opening ‘Other Mommy’ in about 3,200 theaters, on a reported budget in the high teens of millions. Deadline projects an opening around $20M, which would be enough to top the weekend chart.

Other trackers are more bullish. Boxoffice Pro’s panel sees the film opening between $17M and $22M, after earlier tracking ran as high as $35M. Global Box Office has pointed to $22M to $29M depending on reception, and Box Office Theory pointed to $28.5M to $35M.

Boxoffice Pro also flagged that the lack of early reviews or influencer reactions could be the scariest thing of all, though it noted that ‘Resident Evil’ held its reactions until the last minute and still did fine. Savage’s last wide release, ‘The Boogeyman’, opened to $12M, while Chastain’s ‘Mama’ debuted at $28.1M. The competition is light, with Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Social Reckoning’ tracking much lower.

Savage has said the film contains around 50 jump scares, and the early reviews suggest that’s precisely where it may be stumbling. If audiences connect with Chastain’s performance the way they did with her viral smile, word of mouth could still help it hold up. For now, the divide between a strong marketing push and a rough critical reception is the story to watch.

Do the brutal early reviews of Jessica Chastain’s ‘Other Mommy’ affect your interest in seeing it?

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