Is Other Mommy based on Coraline? TikTok swears it's a live-action remake
The internet has ruled: Jessica Chastain is the Other Mother now. The internet is, generously, thirty percent right — and the seventy percent it's missing is so much worse.
No, Other Mommy is not based on Coraline. Neil Gaiman is nowhere near this thing. But I understand why your For You Page is lying to you, so let's do this properly.
The discourse itself is real and thriving. TikTok is wall-to-wall with videos demanding to know how this isn't "just live action Coraline with less whimsy (and Gaiman)," and to be fair to the algorithm: tall uncanny mother-figure, imitation of a real mom, a kid nobody believes, spidery movement. The vibes are absolutely button-eyed.
The paperwork says otherwise.
What it's actually based on
Other Mommy adapts Incidents Around the House, the 2024 novel by Josh Malerman — the Bird Box guy — not anything by Gaiman. Rob Savage (Host, the man who made us fear Zoom calls) directs for Blumhouse and James Wan's Atomic Monster, with Universal releasing it October 9 after a nervy delay from May. Jessica Chastain pulls double duty as Ursula, the actual mother, and the entity that borrows her face to court eight-year-old Bela; Jay Duplass plays dad, and Karen Allen — Marion Ravenwood herself — is in the house too.
And the crucial difference from Coraline isn't cosmetic. The Other Mother wants to lure a bored girl into a prettier world and keep her. Other Mommy just wants in — into the house, into the family, into the kid — and the book plays it as a slow home invasion where the monster is also a walking metaphor for watching a parent become someone you don't recognize. No button eyes. No whimsy. No escape hatch back through the little door.
The people making it are not being subtle
Savage has been talking about the adaptation like a man who found his dream material — his favorite stretch of the book is pure daylight domestic wrongness:
"Just the idea of playing a scale like that in broad daylight in such a domestic space… you know, making sandwiches at the breakfast nook, and suddenly you have this scene of absolute horror."
Wan, meanwhile, knows exactly what his lead is worth:
"Jessica Chastain's really the secret weapon. The secret sauce to this movie."
The scorecard, for the comment section
- Menacing maternal double: both, fine, point to TikTok;
- Source material: Malerman 2024 novel vs. Gaiman 2002 novella — not remotely shared DNA;
- The monster's goal: Coraline's Other Mother traps; Other Mommy asks to be let in, which is worse;
- Tone: stop-motion fairy tale vs. a Blumhouse dread machine promising a frankly irresponsible number of jump scares;
- Verdict: not a remake — but if watching it back-to-back with Coraline is your idea of a fun night, October 9 is right there.
TikTok stays undefeated at pattern-matching and winless at reading credits. Some things you can count on.
Previously we wrote: Below Netflix release date and trailer: Jaws meets The Thing, with Josh Hartnett and Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton as father and son
