Entertainment
Jessica Chastain’s New Maternal Nightmare Is Officially Here in Horrifying First Trailer
Spooky season isn’t for another two and a half months, but 2026 has already been a great year for horror. The story so far has revolved around Curry Barker and his box office breakout, Obsession, which earned wildly positive marks from critics and audiences alike and hauled in over $442 million globally on a reported budget of just $750,000. However, it’s been surrounded by stiff competition, including fellow YouTube sensation Kane Parsons‘ blockbuster Backrooms adaptation, the acclaimed 28 Years Later follow-up The Bone Temple from Nia DaCosta, and indie darling Damian McCarthy‘s Adam Scott-led hit Hokum, among others. Yet, there’s a new film that’s already frightening audiences well before it bows in October.
Other Mommy, from Host director Rob Savage, has been building up buzz ever since the official trailer debuted at CinemaCon back in April. More recently, however, viewers going to see Christopher Nolan‘s epic The Odyssey have been frightened to find the horrifying teaser attached ahead of the Matt Damon-led adventure. Based on the 2024 novel Incidents Around the House by Bird Box author Josh Malerman, the film is led by Jessica Chastain as Ursula, a mother in a troubled marriage that becomes infinitely worse when another entity makes its presence known. Her eight-year-old daughter, Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), confronts the being, whom she calls the titular “Other Mommy” because of her striking resemblance to Ursula. However, this mimic is no motherly figure, but an increasingly threatening presence that endangers the entire family.
The trailer has now arrived online, giving everyone a chance to see what audiences were so terrified by in theaters. It first introduces what appears to be Ursula, who is having a light-hearted discussion with Bela about the right things to eat after she catches her hiding ice cream behind her back. She seems like an ideal mother, showing a firm hand, but plenty of care for her daughter, until she starts saying some eerie things. Her full nightmarish nature is revealed when Ursula’s husband, Russ (Jay Duplass) comes home to find the creature in hiding and twisted into a form far less human. Chastain will have dual roles to play between the mother and the monster, also joining Dichen Lachman, Karen Allen, Sean Kaufman, Adam Silver, and Carrie Dimaculangan.
Rob Savage Hopes ‘Other Mommy’ Becomes an Iconic New Horror Villain
Atomic Monster and Blumhouse backed Other Mommy, with James Wan serving as a producer and Malerman joining Savage as an executive producer. The screenplay, meanwhile, came from Nathan Elston. For Savage, the appeal of the project came from the main monster herself, who not only plays into classic tropes of maternal horror and evil beings targeting and manipulating children, but becomes her own entity. In an interview with Collider’s Michael Zimmermann ahead of the trailer’s arrival, he expressed his hopes that, with Wan’s help, effects wizardry combined with the physicality of stunt performer Lucy Johnson, and the Oscar-winning Chastain’s performance, the Other Mommy enters the pantheon of horror greats.
“I think when I first got sent the book by Josh Malerman, who, I knew Birdbox and I knew his stuff. I was reading it, flipping the pages, and very early on, this Other Mommy character comes up, and I was always looking for a new, iconic horror villain. I feel like it’s very hard to make that hit. It’s very hard to make that connect and feel like there’s going to be a legacy to these characters. I mean, James is the king at doing this, especially in the Conjuring universe. But I read Other Mommy and I felt like there is an iconic horror villain that… And I was reading it. I was like, okay, well, if I can get people dressing up as Other Mommy next Halloween, that could be something really special. So that was the jumping-off point. And then to make that horror villain Jessica Chastain, it’s kind of a slam dunk.”
Wan, on the other hand, loved the idea of exploring the concept of an evil doppelgänger, but with extra layers. “It’s a movie about, like, the evil entity in this world is trying to befriend this little kid to try and kind of get into her world to take her over, whatever it is that she’s aiming to do, and I think that’s frightening,” he told Zimmermann. The true horror of Other Mommy comes not just from her appearance, but how the being learns and slowly blurs the line between itself and Ursula. Add in the perspective of a young child who relies so deeply on her mother, and it makes for something that the Insidious and Saw maestro finds deeply unsettling and unique among his filmography.
“Thats a very scary thing, and I don’t think I’ve ever made a movie yet where the evil demonic entity is actually like your mother, or at least looks like your mother in this case, and I feel like that’s what makes this effective is that you know it’s not a faceless monster out there that’s coming into your house that’s chasing you down with a hatchet or whatever. It’s not that. It’s one that wants to be someone that is beloved. That’s from your world, and I think that, from a psychological standpoint, makes for a very effective horror film.”
Other Mommy arrives in theaters on October 9. Check out the trailer in the player above.
- Release Date
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October 9, 2026
- Director
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Rob Savage
- Writers
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Josh Malerman, Nathan Elston
- Producers
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James Wan
Cast
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Arabella Olivia Clark
Bela
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Hayley Spelman
Other Mommy
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Carrie Dimaculangan
Callie
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