Trailer for Jessica Chastain's new film 'Other Mommy' leaves 'Odyssey' moviegoers terrified
The trailer for Jessica Chastain's new film "Other Mommy" -- which left "The Odyssey" moviegoers terrified over the weekend -- has arrived.
The new trailer was among a slate of other previews that played in theaters ahead of "The Odyssey" and prompted some social media users to warn fellow moviegoers to steel themselves ahead of time.
Content creator Skate Carter warned others about the trailer on TikTok, telling them to "look away" and "close your eyes" when the trailer appears onscreen.
Other social media users argued that the trailer was scary enough that theaters should warn audiences about the imagery in the clip before showing the full preview.
The trailer for "Other Mommy" opens with Chastain's character having a conversation in the kitchen with a young girl, who appears to be her daughter.
As they talk, Chastain's character begins making the young girl some pasta on the stove before asking her, "Do you want to know something silly? Sometimes I think about when you and I were one person. Do you remember that?"
The young girl replies, "Since I was a baby in your tummy?"
"Do you remember where you were before that?" Chastain's character asks.
"No," the girl replies.
"You were in my heart," Chastain's character says.
The scene then shifts to a close-up of Chastain's character, who asks the young girl, "Can I go into your heart?"
There is an ominous pause before the scene cuts to the pasta on the stove, which has begun burning.
"You said you wouldn't leave my room," the girl replies.
The trailer cuts to the girl's father, played by Jay Duplass, running into the now-smoke-filled kitchen as the smoke detector goes off. He asks the young girl what she was cooking before a disfigured Chastain suddenly appears under the table.
Additional scenes included the trailer appear to show Chastain's character haunting the young girl.
While the film preview had many viewers on edge, not everyone was as concerned about its contents. Horror fan and TikTok creator Grace Mitscherlich noted that movie theaters have long screened horror movie trailers ahead of other rated-R films like "The Odyssey."
Other social media users said that while the jump-scares were legitimate, the rest of the trailer felt like standard-fare horror.
"Yeah it was scary, but it wasn't scary to look at," one content creator, who posts under the account name Erin Reacts & Reviews, said in a TikTok video, referring to the shot of Chastain's character under the kitchen table. "It was just the way it was. It was just there in the background."
"Other Mommy" is produced by James Wan, the creator behind popular horror franchises including "The Conjuring" and "Insidious," and is directed by English filmmaker Rob Savage.
The synopsis states that the horror film delves "into the darkening world of a young girl, Bela, who forms a relationship with a sinister entity in her home who looks uncannily like her own mother."
Chastain stars in dual roles as Bela's mom and as "Other Mommy," a "manifestation of the entity," according to a press release.
The upcoming film is based on the 2024 bestselling novel "Incidents Around the House" by Josh Malerman.
Horror film enthusiast and content creator GiGi Leal, who called "Incidents Around the House" the "scariest book I've ever read," said in a TikTok video that after watching the trailer, she was "so excited."
"From the looks of this, it genuinely looks like they might pull this off," she added.
"Other Mommy" also stars Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen.
The film arrives in theaters Oct. 9.
