Mom and Dad (2017)
January 25, 2019 10:37 AM - Subscribe

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring. Stars Nicholas Cage and Selma Blair. From writer/director Brian Taylor (Crank).
posted by DirtyOldTown (10 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
This was not as darkly hilarious as I was hoping. The direction has all of the nuance and depth of range as that stereo you got in junior high after you tried moving all of the EQ sliders all the way up. It's frenetic and doesn't know when to pause and mug a little, let alone when to wink.

I think the decision to spend so much time on the parents was maybe not the way I would have gone. Better to come at the story strictly from the POV of the kids and have the transition from standard parental exasperation to homicidal range be presented as a wicked move down a sliding scale.

I didn't hate it, and it has its moments. But it didn't land the way I was hoping.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:05 AM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]


Are... are you doing okay, DOT?
posted by Etrigan at 12:46 PM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]


I really enjoyed this film, but I went in with LOOWWWWWW expectations. Maybe I'm just a sucker for totally nuts Nick Cage.

DOT, there's a horror movie....I can't remember the title, but it's set in the UK in an isolated area. All the adults go insane and it's told from the point of view of the kids. The thing about it (warning spoilers within) is that adulthood isn't measured by age, but taking responsibility so as the survivors begin to make choices to protect others and so forth, they fall victim.

Crap now I wish I could remember the title.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:58 PM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]


Are... are you doing okay, DOT?

Are you worried about me for not finding the parents-killing-their-kids movie as hilarious as I hoped? Or is it because I'm clearly spending all day watching genre trash on streaming tv?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:01 PM on January 25, 2019 [7 favorites]


I will admit that the anal beads monologue is peak Nic Cage.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:05 PM on January 25, 2019 [7 favorites]


I was kind of hoping this film would be a modern take on Who Could Kill a Child? with a bonkers Cage performance. Sadly it didn't live up to it for me.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:54 PM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]


I watched this just last week, and DOT, I had the opposite reaction of yours. Going in I thought it would be more from the POV of the kids, and how horrifying it would be if the people you depended on most turned on you. But I was gratified and excited that so much was from the POV of the parents (and not just the titular Mom and Dad). It really captured how parents can love their kids more than anything, but at the same time hate them for reasons beyond their control.

One key scene for me was when the son beans Nic Cage with a ball and there’s a moment where Nic glares at him balefully, then laughs and breaks the tension. And you’re left to wonder, was the glare a joke? Or was the glare real, and the laugh was an act to cover it up?

Also there’s the scene in which Selma Blair is driving with the daughter and trying to connect with her, tell her that she’s there for her, but the image of the phone screen her daughter is scrolling through becomes a literal barrier between them. At the time I thought it was cheesy to bring in a special effect like this in a movie that is otherwise grounded, but afterward I remembered it as a deft and economical device to show a child shutting out her parent.

And of course there’s the pool table scene, which was another peak I’m-a-Sexy-Cat Nic Cage moment. (I don’t doubt for a second that he ad-libbed singing the hokey pokey for that scene.) Mom and Dad confront that their lives are not what they thought they would be when they were young, and you see how all too easy it is for them to project that anger onto their kids.

So yeah, even though it was a horror movie about kids being killed by their parents, I see it as being more directed toward parents’ fears than kids’.

Personal anecdote: I watched this movie with my SO and her young horror-buff son. Later, when she was tucking him in, he asked her “do you want to kill me?” He spent the following night at his dad’s, and he watched it again there, with his dad. This movie is either therapy or the complete opposite of therapy.
posted by ejs at 7:56 PM on January 25, 2019 [5 favorites]


miss-lapin that movie sounds amazing, please remember the title and post it!
posted by ejs at 7:57 PM on January 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


Y'alls made me watch this and it's... ludicrous?

Immemorable except for some Nic Cage wild-eye.

miss-lapin - am I thinking the same movie with the babysitter? It was within the last 2-5 years.
posted by porpoise at 7:35 PM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Just watched this last night. Found many parts of it really distressing, in a good way. Loved the title sequence, sound design and music. The ending was a little abrupt, but I get why they did it. Like Colossal, which I watched the night previous, it was way better than I expected it to be
.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:42 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


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