Warning: full spoilers for Other Mommy below, including the final scene and the post-credits moment, and for the ending of Josh Malerman's novel Incidents Around the House.
Other Mommy ends with a little girl beating a demon, and the book it is based on ends with the demon wearing the little girl. That is about as large as an adaptation change gets, and most of the coverage I have read treats it as the film going soft.
I don't think that is quite right. The film does spare Bela, but look at what it leaves her with: a mother who has just said out loud that she never wanted her, and a last shot that sits on that mother's face. My argument here is that the film did not remove the book's horror. It moved it from the closet to the kitchen table.
Other Mommy ending explained: the short version
Bela survives. She refuses to let Other Mommy into her heart, destroys the entity, and both her parents live. In the novel the opposite happens: the entity kills her grandmother and parents, Bela says yes, and it takes her body. The film's last scene shows the family together, with Ursula visibly apart from the laughter. I read that look as an unhappy mother, not a possessed one.
Other Mommy plot recap: what happens before the ending
Bela Martin is seven, new at school, and living with two parents who are barely holding a marriage together. Ursula works long corporate hours. Russ, whom Bela calls Daddo, is out of work and at home. At night, something comes out of Bela's closet that looks exactly like her mother. Bela calls it Other Mommy, and it keeps asking the same question: can it come into her heart?
The film wastes no time. In order:
- The parents see it. Other Mommy turns up in daylight, offering to make lunch. Russ finds it folded under the kitchen table and goes through a window. Ursula sees it at the couple's anniversary party, where it also borrows the babysitter's face.
- Frank's house. The family hides with Frank, Russ's friend, who is also sleeping with Ursula. Bela senses it. Other Mommy gets her to agree that things would be better without Frank, then kills him in front of her.
- The play centre. Bela is dragged into a bottomless ball pit, comes out in the sea, and then in the family car, now full of plastic balls and Other Mommy.
- Grandma Ruth. Ruth brings in a team of paranormal investigators. They work out what the thing is, hold a séance, and several of them die for it.
- Home. With nowhere left to run, the family goes back to the house to finish it.
What is Other Mommy, and what are its rules?
It is a demon that wants a living body. The film opens on a line saying that being alive is the one thing demons lack and want most, and the investigators later label it a trickster.
Three rules matter for the ending:
- It needs permission. It can kill, change shape and bend rooms, but it cannot take Bela unless she says yes.
- The mother's face is a costume. Director Rob Savage has said Ursula's shape is a disguise chosen to put Bela at ease, and one the entity struggles to hold.
- It feeds on what is already wrong. It does not create the distance in Bela's family. It offers itself as the fix for it.
That last rule is why I think the ending had to be about the parents and not about a ritual. You cannot exorcise a marriage.
What happens at the end of Other Mommy?
Bela pretends to give in, then tears the entity apart. The sequence runs like this:
- The family confronts Other Mommy at home. Most accounts put this in the basement.
- Hoping that a child with fewer illusions is a less tempting one, Ursula and Russ decide to tell Bela the truth about her family.
- The truth lands badly. Bela runs to her room and calls for Other Mommy, saying she is ready.
- In her bathroom the entity appears as Bela herself and asks for a hug.
- It asks one last time to come into her heart. Bela refuses and rips into it. One breakdown says she goes for a scar on the double's back, and that she is remembering her grandmother's advice about choosing who you let into your heart.
- The entity is destroyed. Bela's parents find her alive.
Whether Bela was bluffing from the moment she called for it, or changed her mind at the last second, depends on which account you read. I lean towards the second. A seven-year-old who has just heard what Bela heard is not running a con. She is hurt, she reaches for the only thing offering comfort, and then she sees it wearing her own face and understands what it wants.
What secret do Bela's parents tell her?
Ursula tells Bela that she never wanted to be a mother, and that Russ is not her biological father. Ursula was married to another man when she and Russ met, she became pregnant, and Russ chose to raise the child as his own.
That is how most summaries, and the novel, have it. One explainer describes Russ as the biological father, so check this against the film itself if it matters to you.
The logic of the confession is brutal when you say it plainly. The parents decide the way to save their daughter is to make her less innocent, so they hand a child two facts most adults would struggle with, in a basement, with a demon in the house. It nearly works in the wrong direction. I find this scene more upsetting than anything the creature does, and I think the film knows it.
Does Other Mommy possess Bela?
No. In the film Bela never gives permission, so the entity never gets in. She ends the film in her own body, with both parents alive.
Be careful with what you read on this. A few recaps describe Bela saying yes and waking up in a void. That is the novel's ending, not the film's.
How does the book Incidents Around the House end?
The demon wins completely. In Josh Malerman's 2024 novel, which is narrated by an eight-year-old Bela:
- The parents try the same plan. Bela learns that Daddo is not her biological father. It does not drive the entity away.
- Bela realises that the person she thinks is Grandma Ruth is Other Mommy. She hides in a closet and finds her grandmother's body there.
- Using Ruth's voice, the entity calls Ursula and Russ upstairs. Bela later finds them face down in her bedroom. In her child's telling they are sleeping. The reader knows better.
- Alone, Bela is asked the question again. She says yes.
- She finds herself in a huge, empty space, listening to the entity practise her voice. It has her body. She has the place it came from.
Variety calls that ending "exceedingly bleak", and it is. What makes it worse is that Bela's yes is not really a choice. The book removes every person who could help her and then asks.
Why does the film spare Bela when the novel doesn't?
Because the film is about a decision and the book is about a child who is never given one. Savage told Empire, as reported in several places, that the whole film comes down to a choice Bela has to make. I think three things follow from that.
First, a choice needs alternatives. The novel kills the alternatives. For Bela's refusal to mean anything on screen, her parents have to be alive, flawed and still hers. So they live.
Second, the film has no narrator. The book's ending works because we are inside Bela's head while she misreads her parents' bodies as sleep. Savage has said he found voiceover a lazy way to carry that across. A camera cannot do that double vision. Shot plainly, the novel's ending is two dead parents and a possessed child, which is a different and cheaper kind of shock.
Third, and less nobly, this is a studio horror film. It is a Blumhouse and Atomic Monster production sold on a viral trailer. I doubt anyone involved wanted to send a wide audience home on a seven-year-old losing her soul. That is my guess, not something anyone has said.
The result is that the book and film give opposite answers to the same question. The novel says a child cannot be expected to resist when the adults around her fail. The film says she can, if she accepts that they will fail her sometimes. I find the book's answer more honest and the film's more useful.
What does Ursula's look in the last scene mean?
It means the family is safe and not fixed. In the epilogue, set in winter with the three of them putting up Christmas lights, Bela and Russ are laughing together and Ursula is not really part of it.
Accounts differ on the exact beat. People describes Ursula as upset and disappointed. Another breakdown has Bela noticing a scar on her mother's neck that resembles one on her own back, and Ursula answering with a smile. That gives two readings.
- Ursula has been replaced. The scar and the smile are the tell, and Other Mommy got a body after all. The trouble is that the film has already explained the scar: the entity bit Ursula's neck while she was shielding Bela. And its own rule says it needs permission, which nobody gave.
- Ursula is simply still Ursula. She did not want this life before the haunting, she said so to her daughter's face, and killing a demon has not changed it. The look is the old unhappiness coming back.
I lean firmly towards the second. It is the reading the rules support, and it is the more frightening one. Bela spent the whole film being offered a mother who wanted her completely. She turned it down for one who does not, and now she has to live with that. The last shot is the bill.
Other changes from the book
- The title. The film was announced under the novel's name and retitled Other Mommy during production. It is Bela's name for the entity.
- How the demon looks. On screen it is a near-perfect copy of Ursula with small tells, such as a drooping face or feet that do not quite touch the floor. Variety notes the book's version is more bird-like, smells foul and makes people cough.
- Frank's death. In the book he is simply found dead in a closet. In the film his head bursts in front of Bela.
- The ball pit. The book's equivalent is a tense scene at a playground that ends in a fall.
- The séance. The book's spiritualists admit they are out of their depth. The film's team actually summons the thing and pays for it.
- Bela's age. She is eight in the novel and seven in the film.
Does Other Mommy have a post-credits scene?
Yes, a very short one. Other Mommy looks down into the camera, puts a finger to her lips and shushes the audience.
It is a wink more than a plot point. It suggests the entity is not gone for good, but it shows nothing about Bela or the family, so I would not hang a theory on it. If anything it undercuts my favourite thing about the ending, which is that the real threat left in the house is human.
What didn't work for me
- The confession is not earned. The idea is strong, but the film has spent an hour sprinting between set pieces. When Ursula finally speaks, the scene has to carry the entire family drama at once. Bloody Disgusting's review calls the timing baffling and I agree.
- Bela shrugs things off. She watches a man's head explode and is at a play centre in the next scene. The book can excuse that through her narration. The film cannot.
- The rules blur at the end. If permission is everything, why does tearing at the double destroy it? TheWrap's review also mocks Ursula going after a demon with a potato masher, and it is hard to argue.
- Too much of the monster. Jessica Chastain standing still and smiling is frightening. A stretched digital version of her is not.
My verdict: is Other Mommy worth watching?
2.5 out of 5. Chastain is the reason to go. Playing a tired woman and a thing doing an impression of a loving mother, she makes the second one warmer than the first, which is the whole film in one performance. Arabella Olivia Clark is very good as Bela.
Around them is a rushed, loud film. Critics have been harsh: Rotten Tomatoes has sat around 20 per cent, and opening-night audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore. The New York Times called it a "sometimes-creepy, sometimes-hilarious schlockfest". I am kinder than that because of the last five minutes, but only a little.
If you have read the novel, go in knowing it is a different story with the same monster.
Other Mommy cast and characters
| Actor | Character | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Jessica Chastain | Ursula Martin / Other Mommy | Bela's mother, and the entity that copies her |
| Arabella Olivia Clark | Isabela "Bela" Martin | The seven-year-old the entity wants |
| Jay Duplass | Russell "Russ" Martin | Bela's father, "Daddo" |
| Karen Allen | Grandma Ruth | Bela's grandmother, who hires the investigators |
| Arian Moayed | Frank | Family friend having an affair with Ursula |
| Dichen Lachman | Lois | An exorcist |
| Sean Kaufman | Kelvin | Supporting role |
Rob Savage, who made Host and The Boogeyman, directs from a screenplay by Nathan Elston. James Wan produces. The film was shot in Dublin, Ireland, and runs about 93 minutes.
Will there be an Other Mommy 2?
Nothing has been announced. The case for one is money: trade estimates put the opening weekend at around $28 million against a reported budget under $20 million, and the post-credits shush leaves the door open.
The case against is that the reviews and that D+ suggest a steep drop, and the novel has no sequel to adapt. If it happens, I would expect a new family and the same entity. Bela's story is finished, and the film was right to finish it.
FAQ
Does Bela die in Other Mommy?
No. Bela survives the film, in her own body, and both of her parents survive too.
Does Other Mommy possess Bela at the end?
Not in the film. Bela refuses to let the entity into her heart, and it cannot take her without her permission. In the novel, she says yes and it does.
How does Bela defeat Other Mommy?
She appears to give in, then refuses when the entity, wearing her own face, asks one final time to enter her heart, and she tears it apart.
What is Other Mommy?
A shapeshifting demon that wants a living human body. It takes the form of Bela's mother to win her trust and needs her consent to possess her.
Is Russ Bela's real father?
According to most accounts of the film, and the novel, Russ is not Bela's biological father but chose to raise her as his daughter.
Is Ursula possessed at the end of Other Mommy?
The film gives no proof that she is. Her neck scar comes from the entity biting her earlier, and her expression fits a woman still unhappy in her marriage and with motherhood.
How is the Other Mommy movie different from the book?
The biggest change is the ending. In the book the entity kills Bela's grandmother and parents and takes her body, while in the film Bela wins and her family lives.
What book is Other Mommy based on?
It is based on Incidents Around the House, a 2024 horror novel by Josh Malerman, who also wrote Bird Box.
Is Other Mommy based on a true story?
No. It is an adaptation of a novel and the story is fiction.
Is there a post-credits scene in Other Mommy?
Yes. In a brief scene after the credits, Other Mommy faces the camera and shushes the audience.
Who dies in Other Mommy?
Frank, the family friend, is killed by the entity, and so are several of the paranormal investigators at the séance. Bela, Ursula and Russ all survive.
Who plays Other Mommy?
Jessica Chastain plays both Ursula, Bela's mother, and Other Mommy, the entity that imitates her.
How long is Other Mommy?
The film runs about 93 minutes.
So, did the film go soft? On the monster, yes. On the family, no. The novel ends when Bela loses everyone. The film ends when she chooses to keep the people she has, knowing exactly what one of them thinks of the job. Ursula's face in that last shot is the film admitting that this was the harder ending to live through, and I think it is the best thing in it.
