The director of Other Mommy revealed how he wants the audience to remember his upcoming movie. In the horror flick, Jessica Chastain plays dual roles as a mother and a mysterious entity, who could be a potential new horror icon.
In a Press Statement, director Rob Savage said he wants the entity to be remembered as an iconic horror character, “Something in the tradition of Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers, and there are not many of those in modern horror cinema.”
The entity in Other Mommy is a sinister, shape-shifting supernatural entity that appears as the doppelgänger of Ursula, the mother of 8-year-old Bela. The character was created by Josh Malerman in his 2024 bestselling novel Incidents Around the House.
Jessica Chastain’s Other Mommy has plenty more to offer horror fans
Apart from wanting to be remembered as a horror icon, Savage described the entity as someone who can manipulate the audience. The director said, “Whenever she appears, or whenever her presence is felt, you learn something new about what she can do, how she can manipulate Bela, and how she can manipulate the audience. The goal was to make sure viewers never felt they had seen the entirety of her.”
“The sweetness of Other Mommy is almost too sweet, but underneath it, you feel something coiled and furious. As she becomes more monstrous, that control starts to slip, and the thing underneath begins to come through,” Savage stated. Moreover, producer James Wan added that the shapeshifting nature of the entity allowed the creators to form the character freely with its horror elements.
Other Mommy’s official synopsis reads, “Bela, an 8-year-old girl living in a home with marital problems, confronts a sinister entity which comes out of her closet. The presence, whom she calls ‘Other Mommy,’ becomes increasingly threatening to her and her family.”
The cast also includes Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Karen Allen, Arian Moayed, Sean Kaufman, Adam Silver, and Alec Secareanu. The movie will be released in theaters on October 9, 2026.