The title “Other Mommy” is misleading. The villainous demon haunting 8-year-old Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) can take any form, including her father (Jay Duplass), her babysitter (Sean Kaufman), or even a complete stranger. But yes, much of the time it impersonates her mother (Jessica Chastain). The reason, I suspect, has less to do with the fraught mother-daughter relationship and more to do with luring Oscar-winner Chastain to the project with the promise that she would get to have fun playing a demon. Sadly, neither the performance nor the film is that much fun.
Within the first few minutes, we get the scene from the film’s trailer that largely sold people on this movie. Bela interacts with Other Mommy in the family’s kitchen. Unlike her actual mommy, Other Mommy is warm and affectionate. Bela likes some aspects of her company, but at the same time knows that she’s fake, as evidenced by her face occasionally becoming distorted. Eventually Daddo comes into the kitchen. Most horror movies would have Other Mommy disappear around this time, indicating that either Bela’s sanity will be called into question or maybe that the demon is invisible to everyone but Bela. But no, the demon makes…
