I was watching the weekend numbers when the reviews hit — and they landed hard. Negative headlines spread fast, and yet the theaters filled. I felt the odd thrill of a controversy that sells, because numbers don’t care about taste.
In theaters this weekend, ticket scanners hummed — ‘Other Mommy’ Is a Bad Movie Already Making Big Bucks
I’ll be blunt: critics and audiences mostly disliked Other Mommy. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 19% and the Cinemascore is a D+, an ugly combo that usually predicts a short theatrical life.
Still, Universal’s Blumhouse release posted a surprisingly muscular opening: $45.2M (€42.0M) worldwide, with $27.5M (€25.6M) coming from North America on an $18M (€16.7M) budget, per Variety. That math buys marketing room and then some — which is why studios smile even when critics frown.
Why did Other Mommy make money despite bad reviews?
You can blame the genre and the machine. Horror has a peculiar immunity: bad press sometimes acts like advertising. People are curious, and you know how that curiosity behaves — it can pull a crowd like a moth to a flame.
I also watch patterns: Blumhouse knows how to position small-budget scares for big margins, and Jessica Chastain’s name gives press a hook. Add strong opening weekend marketing, strategic release dates, and a conversation-driving Rotten Tomatoes low score, and you get a self-feeding loop that converts outrage into ticket sales.
At the box office, midnight shows still sold out — and Resident Evil quietly kept churning
At a handful of multiplexes I visited, fans talked about movies in line rather than reviews. That chatter helped Resident Evil keep a steady climb.
The Capcom adaptation added another $8.3M (€7.7M) domestically this weekend, bringing totals to $138.5M (€128.8M) in the U.S. and $320.3M (€297.9M) globally, according to Box Office Mojo. It now edges past the franchise’s previous live-action record of $314.1M (€291.8M). That’s the difference between a headline and a business case.
Is Other Mommy the worst-reviewed movie of 2026?
Right now, yes — by the numbers. A 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and a D+ Cinemascore place it near the bottom for the year so far. But numbers don’t always mean dead legs at the box office, especially for films that provoke a reaction. If you want proof, look at the receipts.
In group chats and forums, release calendars get circled — October still looks stacked for horror
When I checked Twitter and a few subreddits, October dates were highlighted like trading days on a calendar. Fans plan around the scares.
After Other Mommy, the month keeps feeding horror appetites: Clayface on October 23; earlier releases like Street Fighter, Crawlers, the viral-titled Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, and Whalefall on October 16; followed by Klara and the Sun, Wicker, and Wildwood on October 23. Studios are stacking dates because momentum matters as much as reviews.
So you can watch the critics rant or you can watch the trades report profits — which side are you betting on this season?