The Horror Show
Mom and Dad
by Brian Taylor
In Mom and Dad, parents are suddenly overcome with the urge to murder their children and will stop at nothing to see an end to their sweet offspring’s lives, no matter how old or young they are.
Sounds like an interesting enough premise, doesn’t it? Yeah, it definitely does, but what could have been a wild ride and an entertaining film certainly fell flat for me. Mom and Dad kicks off slowly with far too much unnecessary character development. Usually I’m left yearning for more development, but this movie spends entirely too much time fleshing out characters in a story that never properly wraps up or explains anything in the slightest. Why should I care about the central family when I don’t get a chance to care about anything else? Sure, things are eluded to, such as the strange way electronics seem to go all static and that’s when the urge to murder kicks in for the parents… but is this crucial piece of the puzzle ever explored more? No. Not once. Not to mention there are far too many flashbacks that add zero substance when that time sweet screen time could have been used for delving more deeply into a payoff of some sort.
In what could have been an excellent nod to The Purge, this film provided zero consistency and ultimately failed to deliver the third act; it’s like the final act is completely missing from the film. When it comes to the gore aspect, it was as if most of it was an afterthought, edited out for the majority of the film and then, toward the end, someone said “let’s just throw in a bunch of gore for these next five minutes to make things fun.” In the horror aspect, the only thing really on the horror side was the eye-rolling, “pick up my phone and find something to do while Nic Cage goes on one of his rants for a solid two minutes” moments. Horror as in horrible.
Maybe some of you enjoyed this film. I really need you to tell me why. Sure, some parts of it were noteworthy, especially the hospital scene. However, I just can’t stress enough the lack of consistency. Was this movie a comedy? It certainly offered up no LOL moments for me. Was this movie supposed to be as silly as it was? I don’t know, and I don’t really care enough to do my research. I was angrier than anything when the film was over and couldn’t even appreciate the 80s throwback and style of the final credits because I just found myself asking “is that it?”
If you’re looking for a horror comedy with gore, violence, a likeable cast and a solid plot, I’m going to have to refer you to either Joe Lynch’s Mayhem or McLean’s The Belko Experiment. If you were looking for a more in-depth dissection of this film, I’ll refer you to Google.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.