By Charlie Thompson, Staff Writer        

Imagine if a team of coked up movie executives told ChatGPT to generate a list of horror movie ideas before telling a middle school creative writing club to compose the script for the worst idea the AI came up with. The result would be “Other Mommy.” 

“Other Mommy” is the newly released film from director Rob Savage who is responsible for other groundbreaking works like “Dashcam.”  

The film stars talented actors like Jessica Chastain and Karen Allen who have been incredible and charming in films prior. Yet, in this one Chastain gives her worst Nikki from “Obsession” impression while Allen is barely in the film. 

The film is also supposed to be a horror movie, yet, as someone who jumps at everything, I may have moved in my seat about three times the whole movie. Every jump scare can be seen from a mile away and the psychological horror of the film falls flat. 

A good rule of thumb when making a horror movie is to make a plot outside of the horror that the audience cares about. Take for example “Sinners.” Before the vampires even show up, the audience is invested in the plight of the twins and their dealings with the people of their hometown. This can be seen in other good horror movies like, “The Thing” and “Midsommar.” Films like these almost make you not want the horror to start so you can stay in the lives of the characters. 

“Other Mommy” does the exact opposite, and I found myself begging for the movie to end.  

This film relies on two main horror movie tropes that are done worse and worse every year: the weird child who sees things as shown in “Poltergeist,” “The Sixth Sense,” “Insidious,” “The Shining” and the straight faced, creepy smile, uncanny valley monster-person as shown in “Smile”, “Obsession,” “Pearl” and “Truth or Dare.” 

Along with that, most of the film is set in three separate houses where the same exact thing happens all three times, leading to a sort of this happens, then this happens, then this happens type story. 

The film also gives very little to look at. I found the cinematography and set design to be very basic and uninteresting, setting the tone for the other elements of this movie. 

I understand that the film was attempting to say something but for the life of me I cannot see what. Something about family and staying together? I truly have no clue, and I sat through the entire thing. 

The only real enjoyment that can be pulled from the film is the design of the monster in its true form. Just about halfway through the film, its appearance is very cool, but its never brought up again. Instead, we see CGI Chastain Bruce-Lee-flipping across the screen and missing the characters every single time. 

Overall, the film “Other Mommy” adds absolutely nothing to the horror genre. Watch something else.