Horror has been on a thrilling run in 2026, ushering in a fresh era of scares and introducing audiences to bold new nightmares. For producer James Wan, the genre’s evolution is something worth celebrating, especially as a new generation of filmmakers finds inventive ways to frighten moviegoers.
We’re at a very exciting inflection point in the horror genre, but also in cinema in general,” Wan says. “With successes like Obsession and Backrooms you are seeing the next wave of filmmaking—and the next wave of filmmakers—who are making movies and telling stories that are connecting to a whole new generation. I am so excited about where we are going because horror is such a great commentary on societal fears and societal anxieties that we can do a lot of fun things that most other genres cannot.
Meet the Terrifying Other Mommy
Enter Other Mommy, an adaptation of Josh Malerman’s bestselling horror novel, Incidents Around the House. At the center of the chilling story is Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), a young girl who befriends a sinister entity capable of taking on the appearance of Bela’s mother, played by Jessica Chastain.
For Wan, the unsettling relationship between the mysterious presence and the child it seeks to manipulate made the story particularly compelling.
I was interested in the concept of an entity that mimics someone and uses that ability to get into a child’s heart, get into her mindset, and take over,” Wan says. “I thought it was an interesting way to portray what a demonic presence wants by appealing to a child’s innermost love, innocence and emotion.
Watch the first trailer of Other Mommy:
Rob Savage Embraces the Story’s Darkness
Director Rob Savage was equally determined to explore the unsettling material without stripping away the qualities that made Malerman’s novel so disturbing.
It was non-negotiable for me to preserve the darkness, contradictions, and emotional complexity of the novel,” Savage says. “I did not want to make a softened or sanitized version of this story. When I first came in with my take, I wanted to make sure we were really making the book, and Blumhouse Atomic Monster were completely aligned with that.
And Savage had another ambitious goal. He wanted to turn Other Mommy into the kind of unforgettable horror villain audiences could instantly recognize.
He describes the entity as “something in the tradition of Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers, and there are not many of those in modern horror cinema.”
A Nightmare That Keeps Changing
Rather than simply showing audiences what Other Mommy is capable of, Savage wanted viewers to experience the same uncertainty, fear, and mounting dread that Bela encounters throughout the film.
Whenever she appears, or whenever her presence is felt, you learn something new about what she can do, how she can manipulate Bela, and how she can manipulate the audience, Savage says. The goal was to make sure viewers never felt they had seen the entirety of her.
That unpredictable nature gave Wan and Savage plenty of room to transform the entity into something especially unnerving for the big screen.
The sweetness of Other Mommy is almost too sweet, but underneath it, you feel something coiled and furious,” Savage says. “As she becomes more monstrous, that control starts to slip and the thing underneath begins to come through.
Sweet, familiar, and hiding something horrifying beneath the surface, Other Mommy may look like someone Bela can trust. But appearances can be terrifyingly deceiving.
Other Mommy haunts Philippine cinemas starting October 7.
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