Revenge of Graphic Content #22: Other Mommy (2026) – Will It Deadite?

For today’s 31 Days of Halloween Vol. II, I wrote about the new release, Other Mommy. Well, more accurately, I ended up drifting into thoughts of Evil Dead, but that’s most days for me. The central question, “Will it Deadite?” will make more sense if you read along. I am starting to develop a little bit of a Deadite through-line this month, thanks to Other Mommy and Demons (1985).

Anyway, more writing about horror movies – I do it because I care (send help).

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I have not read Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, so I cannot weigh in on the accuracy of Other Mommy as a film adaptation; I can only really discuss the film on its own merits. I’m not really wanting to write a review of the film, as I have a much different topic in mind, but I’ll say this much: I found my mind wandering a lot during the runtime. I genuinely have great focus when it comes to watching films I am planning on evaluating or writing about, but I found myself struggling with this one. 

I’d have moments of tangential thoughts not so much related to the film, but adjacent to it. “Boy, they did a good job making Jessica Chastain terrifying-looking,” or “Hey, it’s Karen Allen, she’s great!” I saw wargame miniatures in an early scene and tried to identify if they were Warhammer or not. I started thinking about Succession when Stewie (Arian Moayed) from Succession popped up.

It didn’t help that the film’s twist was pretty obvious right away, so I didn’t really have much to keep myself invested in the story. It’s a film with some fun scenes and ideas that doesn’t quite stick the landing.

So instead, I am going to play “Will It Deadite” with the Other Mommy from Other Mommy. Also, I felt my soul die a little bit asking for a ticket to Other Mommy; it’s just awkward as hell to hear the word “mommy” from a man on the cusp of 40 years old.

Will It Deadite?

I’ve brought this idea up a couple of times throughout the course of these 31 Days of Halloween essays, where I draw comparisons between certain monsters and the Deadites of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films (and, to a larger degree, the larger franchise). This is also a way for me to write about Other Mommy by trying to connect to a better film overall. I’ll do anything to get these daily essays done. 

I don’t think we really acknowledge just how influential the Deadites are as monsters enough because I have been seeing them everywhere. Movies following Evil Dead’s 1981 release will borrow characteristics that are quite similar to Deadites, which are an entirely distinct sort of entity from demons. The Deadites are corrupted human souls, usually ancient – they are not demons but can be controlled by them, or invoked through magical ritual. They are spirits driven mad from Hell and seek to corrupt and infect humanity. Thankfully, there is an entire wiki entry that goes into more detail about it.

Now, this isn’t to say that similar entities in other media are actually Deadites, but they could be highly influenced by Evil Dead. When I covered Evil Dead in 2024, I had narrowed the characteristics of Deadites to three things:

A Deadite is three things:

1. Cruel

2. Ingenious

3. Manipulative

By applying these characteristics to any possession-based entity we see in a horror movie, we might be able to classify the creature as a Deadite. Or at least Deadite-inspired. But I also think there are other characteristics to consider, so we are going to need to tweak the list a bit.

Raimi’s Deadites are funny. They are ironic. Often we can lump that into the category of cruelty, but I think it is important enough to be considered something distinct. Deadites have their own strange sort of charisma through their choices of souls to possess or the types of comments they make when committing their atrocities.

Another characteristic of Deadites is the usage of bodily disfigurement. Once they hijack a soul, the body becomes grotesque under their influence. It is almost as if the body of the victim begins to rot in rejection of the unclean soul within them. Deadites have also varied in appearance in the two different branches of the Evil Dead franchise as well, so there is a lot of room for interpretation here.

So, a more accurate list now might be: cruelty, ingenuity, manipulation, humor, and disfigurement. If you manage to hit all five of these categories you probably have a Deadite.

So… how about Other Mommy?

Deadite Test: Other Mommy

 Let’s look at each characteristic of a Deadite and see if Other Mommy matches up in her film. I suppose you might consider these light spoilers for a current theatrical release, but I will not provide overly specific details in case you wish to see the movie yourself.

Cruelty: Pass

The figure of Other Mommy in the film does have a vicious streak and murders several people. Part of her proposal to Bela, the child at the heart of the film, is that her parents will hurt her. All Other Mommy wants to do is protect Bela, if only Bela would let her into her heart (literally). Other Mommy tries to curry favor by granting Bela wishes, in a sense, but with a cruel logic. She says she wants to save Bela from a broken family, but does her best to break it herself.

Ingenuity: Pass

Other Mommy is a shapeshifter-like figure, a trickster entity. She does take other forms in the film to further her goals and get closer to Bela and interact with her in new ways as she grows more desperate. Other Mommy is smart enough to recognize the cracks in the family and works to wedge herself into them for her goal.

Manipulation: Pass

Other Mommy plays the “mother figure” but it is all a front in service to her goal of a sort of escape through the child. She is particularly keen on communicating ideas in child-like terms to manipulate Bela. She uses Bela’s understanding to frame the lies of her parents as a darkness that threatens Bela herself, while Other Mommy is the real threat here.

Humor: Fail

This is where Other Mommy doesn’t quite evoke the Deadite spirit, or the comparison is stretched. While the film has plenty of funny moments, Other Mommy herself doesn’t have that Deadite quality of laughter and jokes that make them so delightfully evil. Other Mommy is cloyingly sweet and co-dependent to the point of it flipping into terrifying obsession and desire for Bela’s acceptance. There is humor in the film, but it is about the monster’s role in the events. There is some comedy in bodily distortion because of how odd and uncanny it looks, but that’s not quite the same as a Deadite making a terrible, gross pun at the expense of a victim.

With that, if leaning into irony there could be a slight argument in the favor of Other Mommy in how she uses childlike imagery to sow terror, inverting comforting objects of childhood into horrific tools of haunting. But it is, admittedly, a stretch.

Disfigurement: Pass

Other Mommy as a film certainly delivers on body disfigurement as the entity ends up taking on all sorts of horrific bodily distortions, even changing sizes and proportions several times. Her body twists and contorts in unusual ways that are quite unnerving. A scene involving a toilet is maybe the best example of being terrifying and comical in equal measure.

Other Mommy: Close Enough to Be a Deadite

Looking at these results, Other Mommy comes very close at 4 out of 5 characteristics. If only she was funnier. She’s not quite a Deadite, but there is a very Deadite feeling to her, with some visual characteristics evoking the recent Evil Dead Rise. Considering Other Mommy director Rob Savage is a primarily horror director, I would not be surprised to learn he is a fan of Evil Dead; the allusions to it are there in Other Mommy. 

Oh, but it turns out, Evil Dead 2 is one of his top three films. From an interview in Far Out Magazine, he says of Raimi’s film: “Sam Raimi is a big one, Raimi and his Evil Dead movies are huge to me.”

Shame he couldn’t commit to the wackiness in Other Mommy. He was very close and the film would have benefited greatly from it.

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