Other Mommy released its official trailer in a very unique way. The movie’s secret trailer drop appeared during The Odyssey, and was the perfect way to reveal Jessica Chastain’s movie.
“Bela, an 8-year-old girl living in a home with marital problems, confronts a sinister entity that comes out of her closet. The presence, who she calls Other Mommy, becomes increasingly threatening to her and her family,” reads the official synopsis for the film.
Alongside Chastain, Other Mommy also stars Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed, and Karen Allen. The movie is directed by Rob Savage (Host, Dashcam, The Boogeyman) and written by Nathan Elston. The movie is based on Josh Malerman’s 2024’s novel Incidents Around the House.
Other Mommy’s trailer reveal was a perfect way to announce a horror movie
While the official Other Mommy trailer is out now, the movie first debuted its trailer in a clever way. During showings of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the trailer appeared with no flare or announcement. Instead, it simply played before revealing its name at the end. Much like the trailer for the recent horror movie Passenger (which played before select movies), the trailer appeared out of nowhere and quickly generated a ton of conversation.
For a horror movie like Other Mommy, it’s actually the perfect way to introduce a project. If Universal Pictures had released the trailer normally, it might have gotten some buzz, but not a ton. However, by releasing a surprise trailer with little fanfare, and one connected to an Oscar-winning actress like Chastain, it created a conversation. Better yet, keeping the trailer off the internet for a week made those who saw it create the word-of-mouth themselves.
Thanks to the buzz that Other Mommy is getting, it wouldn’t be too shocking to see other movies follow in these footsteps. Specifically for the horror genre, a movie dropping a surprise trailer with some chaotic moments (as Other Mommy features) can create even stronger buzz than simply just announcing the project is coming soon. We’ll have to wait to see if more movies adopt this strategy, but it seems like studios are beginning to buy even further into the thought that it’d be worth doing.
