‘Other Mommy’ Heads for a No. 1 Opening, but Audiences Have Delivered Their Verdict on Jessica Chastain’s Doppelgänger Horror as CinemaScore is Revealed

Horror has had a banner year, and the weeks leading up to Halloween are traditionally the genre’s moment to shine. After ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ made 2026 a huge year for scares, Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster are looking to keep the streak going. Their newest entry, ‘Other Mommy‘, arrived in theaters on Friday, October 9, with Jessica Chastain in the lead.

The studio had plenty of reasons to feel confident heading into the weekend. A trailer for the film played in front of ‘The Odyssey’ in July, and the movie cost only $18 million to make. Even a modest opening would count as a win.

The numbers have been encouraging. Thursday previews brought in $3.6 million from 2,850 screens, which topped expectations. The film is now on track for a $27.5 million opening weekend on 3,365 screens, which would be enough for the top spot at the domestic box office.

That puts it well ahead of Sony’s ‘The Social Reckoning’, the weekend’s other new release, which is tracking around $6 million. Pre-release projections for ‘Other Mommy’ ranged from $17 million to $22 million, then climbed to as high as $35 million in some predictions. The film is not on pace to match the openings of some of Chastain’s earlier horror outings, with ‘Mama’ debuting at $28.4 million and ‘It Chapter Two’ at $91 million.

The opening-night audience reaction, however, tells a very different story. CinemaScore has given ‘Other Mommy’ a D+, a harsh verdict for a film that has just pulled strong preview numbers. It is a clear contrast with the box-office momentum.

The grade lines up with the film’s rocky critical reception. Universal held the movie back from most critics until the last minute, and early word from viewers at advance screenings called it Chastain’s worst film in years. Deadline noted that the reviews have been scathing, and Variety’s review said the doppelgänger horror misfires in every direction.

#TheGrade is in and it’s a D+ for #OtherMommy. https://t.co/h6K6WjnUlV https://t.co/D0D0AgOXpQ

— CinemaScore (@CinemaScore) October 10, 2026

Chastain plays dual roles. She is Ursula, the mother of an 8-year-old girl named Bela, played by newcomer Arabella Olivia Clark, and she is also the terrifying entity known as ‘Other Mommy’, who looks exactly like her. As the entity fixates on Bela, the family, including Ursula’s husband Russell, played by Jay Duplass, is terrorized by a supernatural presence.

The cast also includes Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen. Rob Savage directs, working from a screenplay by Nathan Elston, a writer on ‘Succession’. The film is based on Josh Malerman’s novel ‘Incidents Around the House’, and Malerman also wrote the novel behind ‘Bird Box’.

Savage came to the film with a solid genre résumé. His pandemic-era hit ‘Host’ became a critical darling, and he followed it with ‘Dashcam’ and ‘The Boogeyman’. Pairing him with James Wan’s Atomic Monster and Blumhouse promised the kind of pedigree that horror fans look for.

Chastain also has a history in the genre. Before her Oscar-winning turn in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’, she starred in ‘Mama’ and ‘It Chapter Two’. Returning to horror in a dual role was a notable swing, which makes the audience reaction all the more striking.

New trailer for ‘OTHER MOMMY’, starring Jessica Chastain and Jessica Chastain. The film follows a young girl who is threatened by a sinister demon that looks exactly like her mother. In theaters on October 9. https://t.co/Xwu3FI6pYz

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 15, 2026

For all the negativity, the box office picture is still comfortable. Because the budget was modest, the film needs only a fraction of what a major studio release would require to turn a profit, and one estimate puts the break-even point at around $45 million. A strong opening weekend gives it a head start.

The real test will come in the second weekend, when word of mouth tends to decide how long a horror film keeps scaring up business. With Halloween still three weeks away, the film has time to find an audience. Whether viewers who came for the trailer will recommend it to friends is the open question.

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