Jessica Chastain Hit the Other Mommy Fan Event in a Blonde Bob and Green Mini — and the Early Reviews Are Brutal

LOS ANGELES — Jessica Chastain spent Thursday night smiling for the cameras she'll spend Friday terrifying. The Oscar winner stepped out at Universal Cinema AMC in Los Angeles for a fan screening of Other Mommy on the eve of its theatrical release — sporting a brand-new blonde bob and a green Monse mini dress — joined by co-stars Jay Duplass and Arabella Olivia Clark and director Rob Savage.

The look was the first statement of release week. Chastain's signature red hair has been one of Hollywood's most recognizable calling cards for more than a decade, and the sharp blonde bob is a full reset — the kind of transformation that reads as "new era" in celebrity semiotics. The green Monse mini completed it: playful, confident, unbothered. Just Jared's fashion notes confirmed the Monse dress, and the photos did the rest.

She'd teased the transformation the night before on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Talking about going blonde, Chastain joked that blondes "do have a lot of fun," and mused that being blonde is genuinely funny — that as a redhead she could be sassy and knowing, that being a redhead is special but it's nice to have a change now and then, and that when she's sassier than usual people now look at her like they're shocked, because they expect her to be soft and demure. It's a small moment, but it tells you the bob isn't a wig for the press tour. It's the look, at least for now.

What Thursday's screening was selling: Other Mommy opens in theaters Friday, Oct. 9. The horror film follows Bela, a young girl whose family life turns terrifying when a supernatural presence begins taking the appearance of her mother. Chastain plays both — Bela's actual mother and the mysterious creature wearing her exact face, a maternal doppelgänger worming its way into the family home.

The family at the center is already cracking before the entity arrives. Duplass plays Daddo, the stay-at-home fun dad, opposite Chastain's career-focused Mommy — parents barely masking their dysfunction as the supernatural intrudes on a kid who's just started seeing her parents as flawed. The cast rounds out with Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen alongside young Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela, and early word on Clark's performance has been one of the few warm notes in a rough review cycle.

The pedigree is why people expected more than a standard jump-scare factory. Savage — the filmmaker behind Host and The Boogeyman — directs from Elston's screenplay adapting Malerman's 2024 novel, with Wan producing. It's rated R, runs a lean 93 minutes, and Savage has said the film packs in around 50 jump scares. On paper: a prestige actress, a hot horror director, a Blumhouse machine behind it, and an October release date. Everything pointed to a crowd-pleaser.

And the marketing did its job — maybe too well. The trailer went viral on the strength of Chastain's creepy, uncanny smile, and the film arrived at release week with the feel of a genuine spooky-season event. We covered that viral scary-face moment earlier this week — the trailer beat that had horror fans doing double takes. The buzz was real: lean runtime, R rating, Wan's name, a prestige actress going full horror.

Then the reviews started landing, and the verdict is rough. Rotten Tomatoes hadn't even established a Tomatometer score as of Thursday — only a couple of critic reviews were logged, both unfavorable. Simon Foster of Screen-Space gave it 1.5 out of 5, calling it ponderously paced and over-directed, with a half-baked message that reaches for elevated horror and misses the films it imitates. The AU Review's Peter Gray went 2 out of 5, describing an Insidious-lite supernatural flick that is more silly than scary, with one surprisingly gory sequence — and credited Chastain for committing even if that commitment couldn't carry the material.

Global Box Office was harsher: 2.5 stars, a "hot mess" and a cheap attempt at mixing melodrama with failed jump scares, calling it one of Chastain's very worst movies. Bloody Disgusting called it a bland horror movie — too formulaic and haphazard in its execution to generate real fear, all empty jump scares and uncanny-valley disturbances strung together by flashy camerawork. Variety's Guy Lodge struck a similar note, suggesting the film arrives already behind the genre's curve.

It's not unanimous. A few early viewers were warmer — one gave it 7 out of 10 and praised Chastain's genuinely creepy faces, while another said the first half was good before the second half turned absurd. Slant's review found a breakneck momentum and praised Clark's moving performance as Bela. But the critical center of gravity is clear, and it's not kind.

The box-office question is whether any of this matters. Universal is opening Other Mommy on a reported budget in the high teens of millions. Deadline projects an opening around $20 million — enough to top the weekend chart. Other trackers are more bullish: Boxoffice Pro's panel sees $17M to $22M (after earlier tracking ran as high as $35M), Global Box Office points to $22M to $29M depending on reception, and Box Office Theory floated $28.5M to $35M. For context: Savage's The Boogeyman opened to $12M, while Chastain's Mama debuted at $28.1M. The competition is light — Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning is tracking much lower. Boxoffice Pro did flag one thing scarier than the reviews: the lack of early reviews or influencer reactions, the kind of silence that suggests a studio holding its breath.

It's been a week of viral moments around horror and Hollywood — Chastain's scary face one night, Megan Fox's viral Letterboxd moment the next. The machine is working. The question is whether the movie underneath can convert the curiosity into word of mouth — or whether the reviews do the talking instead.