Jessica Chastain has played a lot of roles, but playing a supernatural entity that crawls out of a child’s closet to impersonate her mother might be the most unsettling one yet. New images from Other Mommy have surfaced, and they confirm exactly what the trailer hinted at: this is not your average haunted house movie. This is a film about an eight-year-old girl who befriends something that looks like her mom, and that something is absolutely not her mom.
Rob Savage knows how to make horror feel personal. After Host and Dashcam, he has built a reputation for turning everyday spaces into nightmares, and Other Mommy might be his most mainstream swing yet. The setup is deceptively simple. Bela, played by newcomer Arabella Olivia Clark, lives in a home where the marriage is falling apart. She retreats to her closet for comfort, and something retreats back with her.
The entity, which she calls Other Mommy, starts out as a friend and gradually reveals itself to be something far more sinister. It’s the kind of slow-burn dread that works because the target is a child who just wants someone to listen to her.
The images show Jessica Chastain in dual mode. There’s the real mother, exhausted and worried, and then there’s the Other Mommy, who smirks with a visible tear in her eye like she knows something the rest of the family doesn’t. The visual distinction is subtle but deeply creepy. Same face, wrong energy. It’s the kind of performance that requires Chastain to play warmth and menace using the exact same features, and if these stills are any indication, she is absolutely nailing it.
The makeup team deserves credit too, because the Other Mommy looks just human enough to be trusted and just wrong enough to make your skin crawl. The closet itself becomes a character, which is impressive for a piece of furniture.
What makes Other Mommy interesting is that it isn’t just about jump scares. The entity forms a bond with Bela before it turns hostile, which adds a layer of genuine tragedy to the horror. This isn’t a monster that kicks down the door. It’s a monster that gets invited in because a lonely kid doesn’t know any better.
That emotional foundation separates it from the endless stream of possession movies that treat children like props instead of characters. When the threat is personal, the scares land harder. You don’t just fear for Bela’s safety. You grieve for her loneliness.
Universal and Atomic Monster are releasing Other Mommy on October 9, 2026, which puts it right in the heart of spooky season. The cast also includes Jay Duplass, Sean Kaufman, and Karen Allen, which suggests the family dynamics will matter as much as the supernatural ones. Savage has said he wants this to be a horror film that parents watch and immediately feel guilty about. Based on these images, he might succeed. Other Mommy isn’t just a monster. It’s a mirror held up to parental failure, and that might be the scariest thing of all.
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