America has gone mental, parents are trying to kill their kids. That’s it, that’s what Mom and Dad is about. I think this is a brilliant idea, if you’re into that sort of thing of course.
It’s a normal, quiet day in the setting of a typical horror film - a suburban town in America. We meet our main characters very early on, Mom/Kendall (Selma Blair), Dad/Brent (Nicholas Cage), and our 2 kids/main victims; Carly and Josh (Anne Winters and Zackary Arthur).
The family set out to complete their normal, routine day consisting of Kendall going to classes, Brent clocking in at work, Carly going to school, and Josh staying at home with what seems to be a cleaner, or Nanny… or chef? (this was never really explained, but you get the drift). Suddenly, parents are at the school gate trying to get to their children, but no one knows why. Seconds later, there are news reports of parents trying to kill their kids. Before they know it, Carly and her friend Riley are charging away from the school trying to get to safety. Parents are roaming the streets like hungry zombies, armed with bloody baseball bats, and knives, and soon enough one of the girls ends up being killed by their parent.
That was the final point, in which this film held my attention. Then my attention started to drift, because it all became a bit of something and nothing. The build up was so much, that when it all started to calm down I was constantly on edge expecting something really big to happen. Nothing big happened.
Mom and Dad is described as a dark comedy, and I agree that it fits into that category. Although a little bloody and grim in parts, this is not a classic horror. The way the characters have been written really helps lighten the mood of this film, as much as this can be done. I mean, it wasn’t funny per se, but there are moments that amused me. It didn’t cross the line between being comedic, and being silly. It sat somewhere in the middle. It was utterly ridiculous, as an entire film, but it wasn’t unbearable.
The strongest thing about this film was Nicholas Cage. I can confidently say he was one of the only members of the cast I was interested in watching once the film kicked in. I have never really been over, or underwhelmed by Cage (except for in National Treasure, sick film). Initially I didn’t really care for his character, but he really brought the role to life, and made me wonder whether it was the fact that he had been brainwashed by the media – which is what we were being told was happening during this film, or if he was genuinely a psycho dad, who was in the midst of a midlife crisis that genuinely wanted to kill his kids. Honestly, he freaked me out a bit and I’m glad that this film had something to hold the darkness there.
I didn’t really understand Selma Blair’s character in the same way (not that I relate to a child killer), I just feel like her change was just so random. To be honest, I still don’t fully get why everyone wanted to kill their kids. Kendall for example was strong as anything one minute, and fighting off this urge, then next minute she wants to stab her daughter in the head… but her personality didn’t change, Kendall seemed incredibly monotone throughout.
We didn’t see much of Zachary Arthur (except that he’s cute as a button), and Anne Winters was as good as she could be, it just wasn’t show-stopping. She spent most of it running and surviving.
The script for this film seemed like a giant mish-mash of events. It’s like they had it all sorted, then it came to editing and with the looming deadline it was going to be easier to randomly plop bits together. It felt messy, come on - it ended half way through a sentence! The script is what really let the film down. If it wasn’t so jumbled, something good could have been produced.
One thing that was done nicely was the lighting. The mood was very sombre throughout, like something bad was going to happen. I wish I could say the same for the score, the pacing, the rest of the cast, or anything at all, but nothing else was memorable.
This film was absolute chaos, which fizzled into nothing. Such a huge disappointment.
4/10
CINEMATES - S
No comments:
Post a Comment