Movies Like Other Mommy: 10 Horror Movies Where Mom Isn't Quite Mom

Other Mommy's producer, James Wan, directed this one. In 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move their five daughters into a Rhode Island farmhouse, every clock stops at 3:07 a.m., and Carolyn starts waking up with bruises. Then they call Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wikipedia). It's a haunted-house movie built around a mom.

Deborah Kerr plays a governess hired to watch over two children on a big country estate, and she comes to fear the house is haunted and the children are being possessed (Wikipedia)). It's adapted from Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, with Truman Capote on the script. A grown-up who steps into the parent's place, two kids who seem to answer to someone else, and a gothic mansion lit like a candle is about to go out.

Jersey, 1945. Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a mother alone in a big manor with her two children, who can't be exposed to light. New servants arrive, and strange things start happening in the house (Wikipedia)). Grace keeps the house dark behind heavy curtains to protect them (Wikipedia)), and the whole movie lives in that gloom.

Laura (Belén Rueda) moves back into the orphanage she grew up in, planning to turn it into a home for disabled children. After an argument with her adopted son Simón, he goes missing (Wikipedia)). It's J. A. Bayona's debut, and a mother searching her own house for her child is about as close to Other Mommy's emotional core as this list gets. Subtitled.

A girl comes home from a mental institution with her sister, and the house is already wrong. So is their new stepmother (Wikipedia). Kim Jee-woon based it on a Joseon-era folktale. For anyone who wants the "who is this woman pretending to be family?" chill, this is the deep cut. Subtitled.

Five-year-old Carol Anne starts talking to the TV static at night. "They're here," she says. Soon the house turns on the Freeling family, and Carol Anne gets pulled through a portal in her closet (Wikipedia)). Parents who have to go get their kid back from something only she could hear is the Other Mommy setup with the lights flickering.

Twelve-year-old Regan plays with a spirit board and tells her mother, Chris, that she's been talking to someone she calls "Captain Howdy." What follows is a demonic possession and two Catholic priests trying to save her (Wikipedia). Ellen Burstyn stars as Chris. Other Mommy brings in an exorcist of its own, played by Dichen Lachman (Wikipedia), so this is the obvious ancestor. Heads up: the possession scenes are still rough going decades later.

Rachel (Naomi Watts), a Seattle journalist, watches a cursed videotape and gets a phone call: "Seven days." Then her 8-year-old son Aidan watches it too (Wikipedia)). A mother on a deadline, chasing the story of a strange little girl.

The Ring (1998) is the Japanese original, and it's on the site too.

Elizabeth wakes up and her boyfriend is cold and distant. She's sure he's an impostor (Wikipedia)). If the scariest part of Other Mommy for you was a familiar face that isn't the person you know, this is the classic version of that fear. Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum star, and it's set in San Francisco.

Mark comes home to West Berlin and his wife Anna asks for a divorce. Then he meets their son's teacher, Helen, who looks identical to Anna except for her lighter hair and green eyes (Wikipedia)). A broken marriage, a little boy caught in the middle, and a double. Fair warning: it's the most intense film on this list, and strictly for adults.

The goodrecmovies page files this one under animation, drama and family, so it sits down here. But if you're talking about "other mothers," you can't skip it. Coraline finds a secret door to an Other World where button-eyed doubles of her parents lavish her with food and attention. The Other Mother wants her to stay forever, if she'll let buttons be sewn onto her eyes (Wikipedia)). It's the pick here you can share with older kids, though the last act is genuinely creepy.

Bong Joon Ho's psychological thriller follows a mother whose son is accused of murdering a young girl, so she sets out to find the real killer herself (Wikipedia)). It's a mom-will-do-anything story played completely straight, and it's subtitled.