Other (film)

Lore & Background

The film's premise centers on Alice, who returns to her mother's house after her mother is mysteriously murdered, finding the home filled with surveillance systems. The cast includes Olga Kurylenko as the adult Alice, Lola Bonaventure as the 17-year-old Alice, and Anne-Pascale Clairembourg as the 43-year-old Elena, with Jacqueline Ghaye playing Elena at age 64. Other characters include Jean Schatz as The Beast, Sacha Nugent as Boy with a Mask, Philip Schurer as Charlie, and Julie Maes as Julie.

Reader's Guide

Other received mixed reviews, with a 36% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 critics. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4, criticizing that Moreau 'can't quite figure out what story he's telling here, or the best way to tell it' and calling it 'a film that’s too often annoyingly fleeing from its best ideas.' John Serba of Decider offered a more favorable view, noting the film 'doesn't quite balance its intellectual and emotional components, but it's a compelling horror outing with more assets than flaws.' The film was released in France on July 9, 2025, and in the United States on November 18, 2025, distributed by Shudder.

Did You Know?

• The film is a French/Belgian co-production directed by David Moreau.
• Olga Kurylenko plays the adult Alice, while Lola Bonaventure plays Alice at age 17.
• The film was released in France on July 9, 2025, and in the United States on November 18, 2025.
• On Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of 14 critics' reviews were positive.

Production & Creative Vision

Other is a 2025 horror film born from a French-Belgian co-production, helmed by director David Moreau who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Jon Goldman. The project brings together a notable ensemble cast anchored by Olga Kurylenko in the lead role of Alice and Anne-Pascale Clairembourg as Elena, a character portrayed at two different ages—43 and 64—by Clairembourg and Jacqueline Ghaye respectively. The narrative also spans time for the protagonist, with Lola Bonaventure stepping into the role of a seventeen-year-old Alice. Supporting players include Jean Schatz as a figure simply called The Beast, Sacha Nugent as a Boy with a Mask, Philip Schurer as Charlie, and Julie Maes as Julie. The dual-age casting structure suggests a story that moves across a significant stretch of the characters' lives, anchoring the horror in a deeply personal, intergenerational dynamic rather than a single isolated incident.

Premise & Narrative Framework

At its core, Other follows a woman named Alice who, after the mysterious murder of her mother, returns to the family home only to find it transformed into a web of surveillance systems. The discovery of these monitoring devices in a space that should feel intimate and familiar immediately reframes the domestic setting as a site of dread and control. The film's casting choices reinforce a sense of temporal depth: Alice is played at both seventeen and adulthood, while Elena appears at 43 and 64, implying that the story's central mystery and its emotional weight unfold across years rather than in a single night. The presence of enigmatic figures such as The Beast and a Boy with a Mask further signals that the horror operates on a level beyond straightforward slasher logic, embedding its terror in questions of identity, observation, and the boundaries between self and other.

Release & Distribution

Other made its theatrical debut in France on July 9, 2025, before crossing the Atlantic to reach American audiences on November 18, 2025. The film's distribution in the United States is handled by Shudder, the streaming platform and content brand long associated with horror and genre cinema. This partnership places the film squarely within a curated ecosystem of frightful storytelling, suggesting a target audience that gravitates toward atmospheric, character-driven horror rather than mainstream blockbuster scares. The roughly four-month gap between the French and American release windows is typical of international co-productions that first establish their home-market presence before expanding into larger territories. As a French-Belgian production, the film carries the cultural and linguistic identity of its origin while finding a global audience through a distributor whose brand is synonymous with the horror genre.

Critical Reception

Critical response to Other has been decidedly mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 36 percent approval rating based on fourteen critics' reviews, indicating that while a portion of the press found merit in the project, the majority did not. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com awarded the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, expressing frustration that Moreau struggles to identify the story he is ultimately telling or the most effective way to deliver it. He characterized the result as a film that repeatedly abandons its strongest concepts. On the other hand, John Serba of Decider offered a more sympathetic reading, acknowledging that the film does not fully reconcile its intellectual ambitions with its emotional core, yet still calling it a compelling horror experience whose strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The divide between these assessments paints a picture of a film that possesses genuine ideas but leaves audiences uncertain about whether its execution fully serves them.

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