What's the other?

What's the other? Let's untangle a story about a mother and her double.

The phrase most likely points to Other Mommy, a 2026 horror film about a supernatural double of a mother.

First, the vocabulary. A doppelganger is a double of a living person, and the uncanny is something familiar made unsettling. The film is directed by Rob Savage, from a screenplay by Nathan Elston, adapted from the novel Incidents Around the House.

Jessica Chastain plays the mother, and her daughter, played by Arabella Olivia Clark, is seven years old.

• Child is seven

Here is the mechanism of the story: a child perceives the entity, the parents doubt her, and the threat escalates.

Why does a double frighten us? The uncanny arises when something matches the original closely, yet one small detail feels wrong.

The effect is gradual. Likeness builds comfort, then a near-perfect imitation with a flaw drops sharply into unease.

A film creates dread through cast, tone and audience judgment, so here are the cast and crew who shape it. James Wan produced through the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster banner, and filming began in May 2025 in Dublin, Ireland. Now a common misconception: a high box office means the critics loved it. The two measure different things.

Critics gave it overwhelmingly negative reviews, yet it earned about 108 million dollars on a budget of roughly 18 to 19 million. Dividing, the gross is nearly six times the budget, so it was profitable even though reviews were poor.

One edge case: gross is not pure profit, since theatres and distributors take shares, so it only roughly shows success.

Which statement best explains why a poorly reviewed film can still be financially successful? In short, the other is the uncanny double in Other Mommy, and its profit despite bad reviews shows art and money are measured separately.