It’s really no mystery why there are so many horror movies about mothers. It’s the first and most fundamental bond that most human beings have, making violations of the trust between mother and child deeply disturbing as well. What’s less understandable is why the titles of these films have to be so silly. Goodnight Mommy was bad enough, but at least that one (or the Austrian original, at least) was transgressive enough to give the name an edge. Other Mommy, meanwhile, has a scene where a psychic addresses “the entity known as Other Mommy” out loud multiple times during a séance.
These evocations produced giggles from the audience at Inverse’s press screening, unintentional jokes that landed better than any of the film’s intentional attempts at humor. (Why director Rob Savage and screenwriter Nathan Elston chose to kneecap themselves in this way is unclear: The book this film is based on is called Incidents Around the House, which isn’t as catchy as Other Mommy but isn’t as risible, either.) Not that there are a lot of jokes to go around, as Savage’s films — which include the pandemic-era Zoom horror movie Host, as well as 2023’s The Boogeyman — are self-consciously nasty affairs.
