This
film is like a poisoned slice of apple pie. Somehow, motherhood has been
corrupted, as has fatherhood, right along with it. The how’s and why’s are a
mystery, but for whatever reason, parents are caught up in a psychotic urge to
murder their children. It is probably Trump’s fault, or maybe Brexit is to
blame. Regardless, if you see your parents, run like mad in
screenwriter-director Brian Taylor’s Mom
and Dad (trailer
here) which opens this Friday in New York.
We
can infer that staticky white noise infecting broadcast signals is to blame,
but whether it is supernatural or terrorism—whose to say? It started while most
kids were at school or sitting for their SATs, but it eventually exploded into
a full-scale crisis. It only applies to parents and their direct spawn, so teachers
and emergency personnel will do their best to protect the future generations,
but it is hard to convince all those dumb kids to avoid the very people who
have nurtured them all their lives.
The
Ryans’ teen daughter Carly has been a bit of a pill lately, so she stands a
good chance of being the final girl. Seeing the phenomenon affecting her
friends’ parents, she scrambles home to protect her little brother Josh.
Presumably, their dad Brent is still at work and their mother Kendall (man, are
these ever some white names) is at the hospital with her mega-pregnant sister
(that situation gets extremely messed up), but both will come racing home with
murderous intentions.
Probably
the evilest and most effective aspect of M&D
is the way Taylor slyly hints that the sinister whatsit only amplifies dark
urges that were already buried deep within every over-worked, under-appreciated
parent. He doesn’t spend any time on the mayhem device, because he doesn’t need
to. It is just the push the Ryans have been waiting for.
Finally,
M&D is the film that fully and
necessarily capitalizes on Nic Cage’s bat-scat crazy acting style. He shows Brent
Ryan’s dark side, in all its twitchy, seething fury. While Cage goes up, over,
and out, Selma Blair is severely restrained, repressed, and resentfully
self-denying as Ms. Ryan. When they get together and go crazy, they make quite
a pair. However, all bets are off when the great Lance Henriksen shows up as Grandpa
Ryan.
M&D is unrepentantly violent
and subversive, to its unending credit. Frustratingly, Taylor leaves a few
obvious avenues unexplored, like what happens to parents who adopted? Maybe
that will be grist for a sequel. Regardless, the film is way more
psychologically believable and compelling than a lot of folks will want to
admit. Highly recommended for fans of horror films and Nic Cage tantrums, Mom and Dad opens this Friday (1/19) in
New York, at the Cinema Village.
