Vague Visages’ Other review contains minor spoilers. David Moreau’s 2025 Shudder movie on AMC+ features Olga Kurylenko, Philip Schurer and Jean Schatz. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Any movie that kicks off with a shot of someone’s torn-off face will instantly grab horror fans’ attention. And, in the case of Other, the latest offering from David Moreau (MadS), it’s a running theme. No sooner has that poor, unnamed soul been discarded than another is laid out for a greedy crow to peck away at, showcasing some impressive makeup work in the process. The opening prologue, meanwhile, is shot found-footage style, with a first person POV and a running commentary from an unseen host. As such, at first, it’s tough to pin down exactly what the angle is, with Moreau, who cowrote the screenplay with Jon Goldman, pinballing between tones and locations before the movie finally settles into a nicely moody groove. By narrowing its focus, and sticking to a single location, Other slows down long enough to establish an intriguing mystery that holds strong despite the hokeyness on display elsewhere. 

Other’s heroine is Olga Kurylenko’s Alice, who’s enjoying her life far removed from a traumatic childhood. When her demonic mother perishes under mysterious and  horrific circumstances, the protagonist’s committed boyfriend Charlie (Philip Schurer, who seems to think he’s in a completely different film) wants to accompany her home. Alice refuses the offer, though, likely because the secrets of her mother’s house — a creepily imposing and modern structure that’s all sharp angles on the outside and boasts décor that’s woefully stuck in the past — are too painful to excavate. Naturally, Kurylenko’s character does return home, not least because there’s a strange presence lurking on the periphery that’s hellbent on getting rid of Alice and anybody else who dares cross the threshold. 

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For much of Other, Kurylenko is the only actor onscreen and commands the space with remarkable self-confidence. When Alice receives the phone call about her mother’s death, the shot remains tight on her eyes in a rearview mirror, which — aside from being hugely evocative — speaks to the strength of the lead performance, as so much is communicated through those eyes. Other is a little rough around the edges, especially in the early scenes, but Kurylenko remains a steady emotional anchor. The idea of some kind of creature crawling around the house stealing Alice’s car keys, wrecking her clothes and locking her out is often borderline goofy, but Moreau wrings every last ounce of tension from this wild premise. Crucially, the director plays it totally straight, which — along with Kurylenko being insanely watchable throughout — makes certain elements easier to swallow. Other is also surprisingly scary, especially a night vision sequence that plays with light and darkness to brilliant effect and doesn’t overstay its welcome either. 

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The ”other” of the film’s title is included in the narrative via playful shadows, resonant sound design and barely snatched glimpses of it here and there. The character looks a bit like Bart Simpsons’s evil twin from that one Treehouse of Horror episode, but — fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your position — the other doesn’t get punched through a fake mirror. Instead, there’s something more insidious lurking just beneath the surface, which is tied to Alice’s frayed relationship with her late mother. Glitchy VHS tapes fill in the backstory of what the protagonist endured as a teenager, especially while being pushed to be a pageant queen (Kurylenko eventually puts on her old gown and tiara for a delightfully uninhibited drunken prance through the house), but Moreau doesn’t belabor the point. It’s also impressively difficult to predict how everything will tie together in the end, with an emotional gut punch landing even harder simply because it’s such a shock (though still wholly fitting). 

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Given the number of faceless bodies — even the baby dolls in an attic have missing faces — Other is expected to boast some wonderfully gruesome body horror, and it more than delivers on that basis. Over the last few years, several hand/finger-based torture sequences have featured prominently in the horror genre, most recently in Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025). Without spoiling anything, Other is more effective than Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein’s wedding ring scene. Happily, the FX are more convincing too. Although a murderous creature hovers at the margins of Other, the real monster is Alice’s mom — a terrifying character. And motherhood generally looms large over Other, with Alice being paranoid about falling pregnant despite her IUD, which makes sense given how she was raised. Notably, Moreau doesn’t demonize Kurylenko’s protagonist or suggest she’s being punished. If anything, audiences can empathize with Alice’s plight because she doesn’t have a decent example of maternal nurturing to refer back to, which leads her to believe she should just avoid it altogether. 

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Kurylenko comfortably holds her own throughout Other, whether she’s dancing with abandon in her childhood bedroom, berating an unhelpful customer service representative or falling apart upon being forced to face the truth of her hideous childhood. Moreau’s 2025 Shudder film is a terrific showcase for the lead actress, but it’s also a well-constructed fright fest too, brimming with buried trauma that’s painfully forced to the surface via memorably disturbing imagery. Other may not be the sharpest or most original take on childhood abuse, but there’s more than enough to keep viewers invested until the devastating denouement — especially if you’re a parent.

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

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