The Beldam
Executive summary
"The Beldam" appears in three main registers in available sources: as a 2024/2025 indie horror film starring Patricia Heaton released on VOD in late 2025 (Quiver/Signature release dates cited) [1]; as an archaic English word meaning an old woman or hag with roots in Middle English and early modern usage [2] [3] [4]; and most recognizably in modern pop culture as the terrifying “Other Mother” antagonist from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, a shapeshifting, spiderlike witch who lures children [5] [6]. Sources confirm the film title and release windows (UK VOD Oct 20, 2025; U.S. Nov 7, 2025) [1] and lexical definitions from Merriam‑Webster and Collins that define beldam as an old woman or hag [4] [3].
1. A film title with folkloric baggage
The movie The Beldham is presented in film listings and reviews as a 2024 American psychological horror film that leans on the word’s folkloric resonance; production and distribution notes say Signature Entertainment released it on VOD in the U.K., Ireland and Latin America on October 20, 2025, and Quiver Distribution released it in the United States on November 7, 2025 [1]. Trade and review outlets such as Dread Central describe it as a 2025 indie horror standout starring Patricia Heaton and frame the title as deliberately invoking the crone/witch connotations of the word [7].
2. The word’s meaning and etymology — old woman, then witch
Dictionaries and etymological sources in the record show "beldam" began as Middle English bel‑ + dame meaning a mother or grandmother and by the 16th–17th centuries had taken on senses of an aged woman and, pejoratively, an ugly or malicious one — a hag or witch [2] [3] [4]. The Oxford English Dictionary records multiple senses, some obsolete, tracing usage back to the 15th century [8]. Contemporary dictionaries present the defeasible modern gloss simply as "old woman" or "hag" [4] [9].
3. Coraline’s Other Mother: the Beldam as a modern archetype
Neil Gaiman’s Coraline popularized a monstrous, supernatural Beldam — the "Other Mother" — who outwardly mimics a caregiver while wanting to entrap and consume children; fandom and literary summaries identify that antagonist as "the Beldam" and describe her spiderlike true form and soul‑stealing modus operandi [5] [6]. Critical and fan commentary links that depiction to older European hag/witch folklore and to related figures like Romania’s Muma Pădurii [10] [11].
4. Folklore, adaptation and creative agendas
Sources repeatedly show the Beldam figure migrating between scholarly dictionary entries and imaginative retellings: dictionaries give the word a largely lexical life [4] [3], while pop‑culture sources use its folkloric freight to signal a certain kind of villain — seductive, maternal, and predatory [6] [12]. Review outlets and merchandise tie those strands together: the Coraline Beldam appears in toy lines and analyses, and the film The Beldham explicitly trades on those associations to position itself in the parental‑horror subgenre [7] [13] [1].
5. Multiple usages and potential confusion
"Beldam" shows up across dictionaries, fandom, film titles and pop lists, which can create confusion: some sources treat it neutrally as "old woman" [4], others emphasize the grotesque/hag sense [9] [14], while fan and fiction sites expand it into a full supernatural taxonomy [15] [16]. The same term also appears as variant spellings (beldame) and as unrelated homophones or near‑homophones in cultural references, increasing the chance readers will conflate different traditions and usages [2] [3].
6. What sources do not say (limits of current reporting)
Available sources do not mention the film’s box office, streaming viewership figures, or authoritative production notes beyond distributor release dates and cast highlights [1]. They also do not resolve whether the film’s screenplay explicitly draws on Coraline’s Beldam or on specific folklore such as Muma Pădurii, beyond reviewers and marketing that invoke the general "witch/crone" lineage [7] [10]. For claims about direct lineage or influence, primary interviews with the filmmakers or scholarly folklore citations are not found in the cited material.
7. Why the term keeps resurfacing
The Beldam’s appeal is twofold in the record: linguistically it is an evocative, archaic label for an old woman or grandmother [2] [3], and narratively it functions as a concise signifier for a recurring folkloric archetype — the deceptive, maternal witch that preys on children — used by authors (Gaiman), filmmakers, toymakers and critics to signal particular fears about parental role, domestic safety and deception [6] [13] [7]. Sources show creators and marketers exploit that shorthand to map audience expectations quickly [1] [7].