What would you do if your parents turned against you?
I'm not talking about your dad saying he disowns you because you came out of the closet or your mom saying she no longer has a son/daughter because you said something nasty to her, as traumatic as those types of things can be to a child.
No, I mean, what if they literally turned on you? Like if one day, out of the blue, they simply decided they'd had enough of the lying, back-talk, not minding them and general misbehavior and decided they weren't going to take it anymore and simply snapped, quite literally trying to kill you?
Such is the premise of writer/director Brian Taylor's Mom and Dad, a black comedy about parents turning against their kids en masse in an unnamed suburb for unexplained reasons. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: horror movies are just plain scarier and more effective when we don't know the reasons for what's going on, than when we get some over-elaborate explanation for everything, and this one is no exception.
Taking a cue from George A. Romero and his host of zombie flicks, we never really get a reason for why parents all the sudden go into black-out rages and try to kill their offspring- they just do. About the only hint we get is that it seems to be triggered by a transmission of sorts via televisions that disconnect from normal programming and turn to static white noise, a la Poltergeist.
Only this doesn't seem to have anything to do with the paranormal or demonic possession or the like. Perhaps it's some kind of dog whistle that only people of a certain age can hear, but whatever it is, it causes parents to go completely berserk and try to kill their kids.
They continue to function on a reasonably coherent level- they can talk and even lie to try to coax their kids into coming out of a hiding place if their children choose to barricade themselves out of harm's way- but the overall impulse is to kill their kids by any means necessary.
For the most part, we follow one main family, the Ryans. There's high-strung dad, Brent (Nicolas Cage, in primo Nick Cage form), who is wary of his teenage daughter, Carly (Anne Winters, 13 Reasons Why, Tyrant) starting to date. Then there's mom, Kendall (Selma Blair, Cruel Intentions, the Hellboy series), who laments getting older, while at the same time clinging to the innocence of her youngest child, Josh (Zackary Arthur, The 5th Wave, Transparent).
The day starts out like any other, with the kids fighting and mom trying to keep the peace, while dad rushes to get himself together in time for work so he won't be late. Adding to the friction is the fact that Carly has to reschedule a date with her BF, Damon (newcomer Robert T. Cunningham) because of an impending visit from her grandparents (B-movie stalwart Lance Henriksen, in fine form, and Marilyn Dodds Frank).
Later on, at school, a teacher is somewhat befuddled when one after another, kids start getting pulled from his class. Carly and her best friend, the sexy-but-sullen Riley (Olivia Crocicchia, who played a similar role as Dennis Leary's daughter on Rescue Me) can't help but notice something seems off, especially when a cadre of cops show up. Is there a school shooter in their midst?
Instead, when they go outside to see what's going on, they find a host of angry parents demanding to see their children, as the police try in vain to keep the peace. The kids wonder what the big deal is, until one of the kids scales the fence to be with their mother- and she promptly stabs him to death. Chaos ensues and the two girls escape while trying to avoid whatever it is going on.
After a certain point, Carly sees a news report confirming what we've already realized by then: parents are trying to kill their kids. The reporter warns everyone to try and do their best to keep parents separated from their children until authorities figure out what's going on.
Realizing her younger brother could be in trouble, Carly rushes home to try and save him, but no sooner does she arrive than her dad unexpectedly comes home early from work- and it's pretty clear why. The rest of the movie is essentially Carly and Josh doing their best to band together to fight off their murderous parents, with an assist from Damon.
The action rarely lets up, once it begins, in Taylor's insane darkly comic flick, which is very much in keeping with his previous efforts, especially the Crank movies, as well as Gamer and the bizarro TV series Happy!
As I mentioned before, Taylor gets that what we don't know is inherently scarier than what we do, and by streamlining the process, it allows him to cut to the chase- and the action- making the end result a fast-and-furious thrill ride that rarely lets up and doesn't overstay its welcome, clocking in at just over eighty minutes.
Even better, after a host of crappy movies, Taylor finally gives the fans what they want from a Nick Cage movie- he unleashes the beast. Cage used to be one of the most fascinating actors in Hollywood, but much like, say, Johnny Depp, once people started taking him seriously, so did he himself.
I don't know why it is, but so many actors, after winning an Oscar, seem to quickly lose what made them so interesting in the first place, and go down a rabbit hole of big-budget crap that pleases none of the fans that loved them in the first place.
Granted, every now and then, Cage would land a role in a movie that allowed him to go a little nuts in the way us true fans really love to see, i.e. Face/Off or especially the demented The Wicker Man (say it with me now: "Oh no! Not the bees!"), but ever since he won the Oscar for his admittedly fantastic turn in Leaving Las Vegas, he's mostly been coasting on his laurels and has been distressingly, well... caged in, as it were.
Long gone are the days of such wonderfully gonzo turns in movies like Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Vampire's Kiss, Wild at Heart and Kiss of Death, though. Until now, it seems.
After a string of one-too-many mainstream flicks like the National Treasure and Ghost Rider series (the second of which was also directed by Taylor, incidentally), Cage finally seems to have tired of the mainstream, and is starting to tackle roles that have revived fan interest, like Kick-Ass, Drive Angry and the more recent Mandy, which have garnered him critical praise, if not huge numbers at the box office.
Thank goodness for that, as an un-caged Nick wipes the floor with a distressingly mainstreamed one any day of the week. Watching him gleefully recite the "Hokey Pokey" here, as he demolishes a pool table- and mind you, this is before his character goes full-on nuts- is incredibly gratifying and an instant entry amongst the finest nutso Cage moments of all time.
I aim to watch Mandy next, which has made a lot of critics' best-of-the-year lists, and if he's half as unhinged as he is here, I can't imagine being less than thrilled with the results.
As much as Cage is the main attraction here, I can't leave out a mention of the solid supporting cast, many of which make a strong impression in only a handful of scenes. Blair, who can also knock it out of the park in the right role- witness her own go-for-broke turn in A Dirty Shame - makes for an excellent foil for Cage as his formerly docile wife-turned-crafty-psycho.
Meanwhile, Winters, who at first seems like she's going to be one of those annoying characters in a horror movie you can't wait to see get theirs, ends up being an excellent heroine, as she rises to the occasion of protecting her little brother from the insanity of their rampaging parents.
But I have to also give it up for Crocicchia, who wows in her brief screen time- someone give this girl a leading role in something, stat! - and Samantha Lemole (from Saw V & VI, plus Legally Blonde, also alongside Blair) as her jealous, amusingly trampy mother and Blair's character's bestie.
However, far and away the biggest scene-stealer besides Cage is Henriksen, as Cage's character's father, a Vietnam vet who comes in hot and full-throttle crazy in his brief-but-memorable bit towards the end of the film. The final showdown between Cage and Blair and their on-screen kids is a showstopper, to be sure, but Henriksen and Frank, as his character's wife, help take it to the next level and beyond.
Also factor in a rewardingly diverse soundtrack that runs the gamut from Dusty Springfield (the 70's style opening credits set to her "Yesterday When I Was Young" is an early highlight) to 80's cheese by Erasure and Roxette (which underscores a particularly memorable birthing scene) to some choice gangsta rap (Bill $aber) and punk (Reagan Youth).
Then add in an appropriately bonkers score by Mr. Bill (aka DJ Bill James Day), plus visuals by no less than OG Texas Chain Saw Massacre (and its remake, for that matter) cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and you have what was easily one of the best horror films of 2018, at least of the ones I've seen thus far. Hell, it might even make my Best of 2018 list, period. We'll see.
Either way, if you like your horror balls to the wall and borderline unhinged, look no further for your next new favorite cult horror flick. I can't recommend this one enough- by all means, check it out ASAP if this even remotely sounds like something you'd dig, because I assure you, you will. 😈
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