“I mean I used to be Brent. And you used to be Kendall. And now we’re just… Mom and Dad.”

Drake’s rating: It saws all

Drake’s review: Any time I watch a Nicolas Cage movie, I think of that Community episode. You know the one: Abed takes a class on Cage, and attempts to subjectively answer the question of whether he’s a good actor or a bad one. There are some things man was not meant to know, however, and Abed’s journey takes him to places best not imagined. But what I really remember is the line from Professor Sean Garrity, warning Abed not to take in too much Cage in too short a time.

“Be careful, Abed Nadir. Promise me you will be careful.”

It’s sound advice. Cage is an interesting actor, and even from his early roles in films such as Valley Girl and Peggy Sue Got Married, he was taking his characters just a bit outside the norm. But if you want to delve into how Cage went from an Oscar-winning role in Leaving Las Vegas to telling John Malkovich to “Put. The bunny. Down.” just two years later in Con Air, you just might find yourself on a desk pretending to be Nicolas Cage pretending to be a cat yourself.

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, then stop reading this right now and dive deep into the rabbit hole of Community. I’ll still be here when you get back. Unless Justin exercises paragraph 192, section IV of the Mutant Contract, that is. Even then, I’d still be around. Just, y’know, in a jar.

I really should have had a Mutant Lawyer read that darn thing before I signed it.

So, Mom & Dad. Well, this one co-stars Nicolas Cage alongside Selma Blair. They play Brent and Kendall, a mostly happy couple with a teenage daughter and a young son. They live in a nice suburb, have a housekeeper, and their problems are pretty much on a par with any other middle-class couple. Brent doesn’t like his daughter’s boyfriend, their son is a bit of a lunkhead, and money problems lurk beneath their nice house and suburban lifestyle.

Brent is a Nicolas Cage character, however, so you can expect that there’s just a bit more going on under his “tired dad” surface. But while Brent’s anxieties are apparent, at least to the audience, Kendall’s are deeper. Her daughter Carly (Anne Winters) has hit that rebellious, anti-parent age and the two are seemingly always at odds, her sister is expecting her own first child, and Kendall’s attempt to get back into the job market after a lengthy absence is a humiliating experience.

And then comes this weird static, the one that turns even the most likable, well-adjusted parent into a raging, homicidal lunatic.

There are hints of things going horribly off the rails even from the opening credits, but when parents gather en masse at Carly’s school trying to force their way past the security gate the insanity truly begins. As one kid climbs the fence to get to his mother, only to be met with a grisly fate courtesy of her car keys, the students panic and flee with the adults in hot pursuit. And if you think Jason Voorhees has some creative kills, he could learn a thing or two from these frenzied parents. They grab chains, plastic bags, even a yardage marker near the school’s track, all to do in their frightened offspring.

And really, that is messed up. I mean seriously messed up. While the victimized teens in your basic slasher would do anything to get back to the safety of their home and their parents, here the parents are the threat and they are a relentless enemy. They hunt down their kids and kill them with absolutely no remorse and then continue on with their day as if nothing happened. They know what they’re doing, they simply don’t care. Worse, they seem to enjoy it.

Carly heads for home, knowing that she has to protect her younger brother Josh (Zackary Arthur). Only it turns out Brent is already home and Kendall’s not far behind. And from there it becomes a fight for survival as Carly, Josh and Carly’s boyfriend Damon (Robert Cunningham) are forced to hide from and fight against their parents in an ever-increasing battle between the generations.

Interspersed with all of this are a series of flashbacks. Kendall remembers her unhappy attempt to get her old job back while Brent keeps daydreaming about the wild times in his father’s muscle car. And then there’s the flashback to Brent’s attempt at building a pool table, which is resolved in a most Cage-like manner: With a sledgehammer. And that’s the scene that shows that, yeah, Brent’s not living the life he wanted. But neither is Kendall, and her regrets are just as profound. She just can’t let them show, because she’s Mom.

Nicolas Cage is of course very good in this, and the part is written for him. He goes from smiling dad to murderous monster with a suitably unhinged performance. But honestly, as good as he is, Selma Blair is the real star. As Kendall she’s a harried mom, she’s lived the last fifteen years for her family, and now her daughter can’t stand her and her husband is having a mid-life crisis.

Kendall’s role as a mother is both indispensable and underappreciated, and when she finally succumbs to the static she doesn’t go wild-eyed and frenetic. Instead she goes from crying at the horrible events happening all around her to a stone cold killer with a dead-eyed stare. The transformation takes all of two seconds, but when it happens the whole movie changes. Compassionate, caring Kendall was the one hope the kids might have had, and now she’s the greatest threat to them ever seeing another birthday.

Like I said, this is a messed up concept, and in less-talented hands it could have been an unpleasant watch. As it is, however, writer/director Brian Taylor takes a blackly comedic approach to the material and the actors fully invest themselves in the lighter touches. That doesn’t mean that he skimps out on the violence, however, as bullets fly, cars crash, meat tenderizer hammers are swung with abandon and basements explode. So give Mom & Dad a watch sometime when you’re in the mood for a brisk horror-comedy that has some thought behind it.

Just don’t watch it with your parents. Wouldn’t want them to get any bad ideas, after all…

Intermission!

• OK, the scene with the enraged fathers staring through the glass of the maternity ward? Creepy. Just plain creepy.
• Although this is never explicitly explained, the parents are also hostile to younger people that they didn’t like from before the static. Brent is openly antagonistic and violent towards Damon, and Brent’s mother is instantly ready to throw down with Kendall.
• Lance Henriksen as unhinged Brent’s also-unhinged father is inspired casting.
• Kendall is the brains in the family, and it’s obvious that Carly has inherited her mother’s smarts. Sadly, poor Josh definitely takes after his father.
• The “Saws All.” Does it really saw all? Only one way to find out!