Other Mommy (2026): Plot, Ending, Reviews and the D+ CinemaScore, Explained

"Other Mommy" became one of October 2026's most searched films within days of its release — not primarily for its scares, but for the gap between its box-office performance and its reception. The Universal Pictures horror film drew a rare failing grade from opening-night audiences even as it led the domestic box office chart.

What Happens in Other Mommy

The film centers on Bela, a young girl played by Arabella Olivia Clark, who notices a presence in her closet that looks and sounds exactly like her mother, Ursula, played by Jessica Chastain. Bela names the entity "Other Mommy." According to Wikipedia's plot summary, the double initially stays confined to Bela's room but gradually breaks those boundaries, unsettling the household and repeatedly asking Bela for permission to "enter her heart" so it can take over her body and become a living being. Bela's father Russ (Jay Duplass) and grandmother Ruth (Karen Allen) are drawn into the escalating disturbances, and the family eventually brings in a ghost investigator, Lois, played by Dichen Lachman.

As the haunting intensifies, the story surfaces painful family history, including questions about Bela's paternity and her mother's early ambivalence about having her. In the ending, Bela refuses the entity's offer of a painless existence and declines to let it "in," which defeats Other Mommy and leaves the family of three intact — though the Wikipedia summary notes a lingering unease between Bela and her real mother afterward. The screenplay, written by Nathan Elston, adapts the 2024 novel "Incidents Around the House" by Josh Malerman.

Reviews and Audience Scores

Critical reception has been largely negative. Rotten Tomatoes listed the film at 19% positive from 52 reviews with an average rating of 4.4 out of 10 when checked directly on the site. The site's critics' consensus praised Jessica Chastain's performance as the ghostly double of an overbearing parent but said the film's tonal unevenness keeps its occasional effective jump scares from adding up to a fully working horror experience. The audience score (Popcornmeter) stood at 46% on the same visit. The Tomatometer figure moved during the opening weekend as more reviews were tallied — ComingSoon.net reported 18% from 38 reviews on release day, while TheWrap later cited a weekend figure of 20% critics and 47% audience.

A No. 1 Opening Despite the D+ Grade

Universal's $19 million production still performed well commercially. ComingSoon.net reported $3.6 million from Thursday night previews — nearly $3 million ahead of the same-day competitor "The Social Reckoning" from Sony. By the end of the weekend, TheWrap put "Other Mommy's" domestic total at roughly $28 million, enough for the No. 1 spot, against about $6 million for "The Social Reckoning."

The commercial result sat uneasily alongside audience exit polling. World of Reel reported that the film received a D+ from CinemaScore, the firm that surveys opening-night moviegoers, and described such low grades as historically uncommon, sometimes going years without appearing. TheWrap noted it was the lowest CinemaScore mark handed out since Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" received a D+ in September 2024.

Why the Reception Is So Polarized

Several reviews singled out tone as the film's central problem. According to Metacritic's aggregated critic excerpts, IGN praised Jessica Chastain's performance and a handful of effective jump scares but concluded the film never settles on a clear identity and lacks enough original material to satisfy on a dramatic level. Not every review was negative: Metacritic's listing cites the Daily Beast describing the film as an energetic, hallucinatory haunted-house-style thriller suited to a casual night out at the multiplex — a more favorable outlier among mostly unfavorable notices.

World of Reel's account of the CinemaScore result also pointed to a social-media reaction, reporting that the film became a target of widespread online mockery after opening night — a pattern distinct from the critics' complaints about tone and pacing.

• Director: Rob Savage; screenplay by Nathan Elston
• Based on the 2024 novel "Incidents Around the House" by Josh Malerman
• Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, Karen Allen, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed
• Producer: James Wan (Atomic Monster)
• Filmed in Dublin, Ireland, May 12–July 9, 2025
• Runtime: 93 minutes
• Originally scheduled for May 8, 2026, before Universal moved it to October 9, 2026

The film's trajectory — a wide theatrical push on a modest budget, a doppelgänger premise tied to an original novel, and a split between box-office success and audience/critic scores — is a large part of why "Other Mommy" drew heavy search interest in its first week, independent of whether viewers ultimately liked it.