OTHER MOMMY: A Terrifying New Face of Motherhood Arrives This October

There are few things more comforting to a child than the familiar face of a mother. But what happens when something else learns to wear that face?

That deeply unsettling question sits at the heart of OTHER MOMMY, the upcoming supernatural horror film arriving in theaters October 9, 2026. Based on Josh Malerman’s bestselling novel Incidents Around the House, the movie brings together an impressive collection of modern horror talent for what could be one of the more distinctive theatrical horror releases of the Halloween season.

At the center of the story is Bela, an eight-year-old girl whose troubled home life becomes infinitely more frightening when she encounters a mysterious entity that looks uncannily like her own mother. Bela begins communicating with the presence—whom she calls “Other Mommy”—but whatever has entered her world appears to want considerably more than conversation.

It is a wonderfully simple horror premise because it corrupts something fundamental: trust.

Children depend upon familiar faces, familiar voices and the security of home. Other Mommy takes those sources of comfort and transforms them into potential threats. The result is horror built not merely around something hiding in the darkness, but around the terrifying possibility that the darkness can imitate someone you love.

JESSICA CHASTAIN FACES HERSELF

Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain takes on the film's fascinating dual assignment, portraying Bela's mother as well as the supernatural “Other Mommy.” Young Arabella Olivia Clark portrays Bela, while Jay Duplass plays her father. The supporting cast includes Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen.

That dual performance immediately gives Chastain an intriguing opportunity. Instead of simply playing the frightened parent attempting to protect her child, she also becomes the face of the nightmare itself.

For horror, that's fertile territory.

The audience recognizes the face. Bela recognizes the face. Yet neither can necessarily trust what stands behind it.

A SERIOUS HORROR PEDIGREE

There is another major reason horror fans should be paying attention: James Wan is producing.

Wan's fingerprints can be found across some of the defining horror franchises of the past two decades, including Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring. Other Mommy comes from Blumhouse Atomic Monster, with Wan serving as producer.

Directing is Rob Savage, whose previous genre work includes Host and The Boogeyman. The screenplay comes from Nathan Elston, adapting Josh Malerman's Incidents Around the House. Malerman, of course, is also the novelist behind Bird Box.

That combination is encouraging because Other Mommy doesn't need to become an enormous effects-driven spectacle to work. Its premise practically begs for intimacy—dark rooms, uncertain voices, frightened glances and the creeping realization that something impossible has entered an ordinary family's life.

Sometimes the most frightening place imaginable isn't an abandoned asylum or ancient cemetery.

Sometimes it's the room down the hallway.

HORROR THROUGH A CHILD'S EYES

Perhaps the movie's most interesting ingredient is its perspective.

Placing a child at the center of supernatural horror changes the rules. Adults can rationalize strange noises, dismiss impossible sightings and convince themselves that fear has an ordinary explanation. Children don't necessarily have those defenses.

But children also believe.

And in a supernatural story, believing the impossible might make Bela uniquely capable of recognizing the truth—or uniquely vulnerable to whatever wants her attention.

That gives Other Mommy the potential to operate on several levels simultaneously: as a supernatural monster movie, a psychological nightmare, a story about a troubled family and, perhaps most importantly, a frightening examination of the vulnerability that accompanies childhood.

SOMETHING WANTS TO COME IN

The best horror stories frequently take an ordinary human fear and give it a supernatural body.

Other Mommy appears poised to do exactly that.

What if the person standing in front of you looked right, sounded right and knew exactly how to make you trust her—but wasn't your mother at all?

That's the sort of premise that can linger long after the theater lights come back on.

With Jessica Chastain confronting an unusually sinister dual role, Rob Savage behind the camera, James Wan producing and Josh Malerman's acclaimed source material providing the foundation, OTHER MOMMY has assembled all the ingredients for an unnerving new supernatural nightmare.

And perhaps that's what makes its central idea so effective.

Monsters don't always need claws.

Sometimes they simply need a familiar face.

OTHER MOMMY arrives in theaters October 9, 2026, from Universal Pictures.

This Halloween season, you might want to look twice when Mommy comes into the room.