By Bob Garver
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 its presence known, and the rest of the film sees all three family members contending with it as a unit.
Very soon after this home invasion, the parents throw a party, confident that the demon won’t return now that it’s been discovered. It finds a way in. The family goes to stay with Bela’s unsavory “Uncle” Frank (Arian Moayed), but it follows them there, too. As a last resort, they go to stay with Bela’s judgmental grandmother (Karen Allen), who has access to a network of psychic mediums and paranormal investigators (I thought they were setting up for a cameo by the guys from “Insidious,” but no, that might inject some life into this movie). When that doesn’t work out, they decide to confront the demon in their house, which they think gives them a sort of homefield advantage, except that they forget that the demon already knows their house. They make this decision despite me hissing “padded cell” at the screen.
As you’ve probably guessed, this is a hard movie to take seriously, and I don’t mean that it succeeds in being funny. Bela makes some naïve decisions because she’s eight, but what is all the adults’ excuse for being stupid? From not going to the authorities (which the demon could probably find a way around, but they should still try it) to letting Bela out of their sight on multiple occasions to repeatedly thinking that traditional weapons will work on the demon, these parents are so lousy at protecting their child that I was hoping the police would take her away from them – with or without the demon.
“Other Mommy” is quickly earning itself a reputation as one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year. It isn’t so much terrible in and of itself as it falls short of high expectations set by the casting of Chastain and the highly-popular trailer. There are a few decent emotional beats surrounding the fracturing of the family dynamic. But those rare promising moments are efficiently snuffed out by the film indulging in every haunted-house cliché it can muster, all the more tired because not enough time has passed since the similar “Insidious: Out of the Further” back in August. If the appeal of the film lies in the promise of two Jessica Chastain performances for the price of one, please know that neither performance is worth half of one.
Grade: C-
“Other Mommy” is rated R for some bloody violence, and language. Its running time is 93 minutes.