Read @ Joe’s

You really can’t go home again—especially when home remembers you better than you remember it.

Title: Other (2025) Director: David Moreau Writers: Jon Goldman // David Moreau Studio: UMedia Entertainment // Shudder Films IMDb Plot: Alice returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death, only to find the house is rigged with surveillance tracking her every move, as a sinister presence lurks, driving her towards a terrifying revelation. Joe Says: Other is certainly worth a viewing even with the ridiculously-late payoff being more narratively detrimental than cinematically clever.

That’s the haunting core of Other, now streaming on Shudder, a claustrophobic psychological horror from Director David Moreau that traps both its lead and its audience in a slow, spiraling nightmare. Olga Kurylenko stars as Alice, a woman forced to return to her childhood home after her mother’s death, only to find it transformed into a fortified compound of barbed wire, steel gates, electronics locks, and flashing red alarm lights. She doesn’t want to be there and spends most of the 95 minute runtime either trying to escape or downing herself in alcoholic resignation. And while the gauzy, dreamlike direction builds mood and menace in equal measure, the ridiculously-late payoff is more narratively detrimental than cinematically clever.

Other is essentially a one-woman show. Kurylenko is the only actor ever truly seen. Moreau opts to keep all other players masked, out of focus, or sitting behind a pixel-scrambled LED screen. This is a striking creative choice that underscores the isolation and paranoia gnawing at Alice’s psyche. The camera clings to her face; the world around her blurs and vanishes. The action is bold, unsettling, and at times, hypnotic. Yet the mystery at the film’s center—those strange sounds, missing objects, flickering memories—lingers too long without escalation. The audience, like Alice, waits for a reckoning that simmers too long. And while what that mystery is will not be divulged in this review, as Other is certainly worth a viewing, Moreau’s kicks needed to hit “11” prior to the encore. 

Filmed in France but set in Minnesota, Moreau and cinematographer Julien Ramirez Hernan make exceptional use of light and space. The dark woods outside feel like a void pressing inward, while the interior glows with an artificial brightness that feels just as suffocating. Kurylenko’s Alice meets those contrasts with a fierce, volatile performance—alternating between rage, confusion, and fear, sometimes all within a single breath. Other is Kurylenko’s movie, and she steals the show.

If only the script met her halfway. In many horror movies, once the rules have been figured out, the plot usually explodes, racing towards its denouement. Not so here. Its logic, its revelations, arrive too late for emotional or narrative payoff. When the truth finally surfaces—which, let’s be honest, is a fun little horrific shock—it’s one that’s denied room to breathe. By the time Alice catches up, the credits are rolling.

Luckily, Other is creepy and engaging enough regardless of its zombie crawl pacing. Moreau unpacks the trauma of visiting a repressed childhood home and successfully reminds you as to why you moved away in the first place.