Parents (1989)

Starring:
- Randy Quaid as Nick
- Mary Beth Hurt as Lily
- Sandy Dennis as Millie Dew
- Bryan Madorsky as Michael
- Juno Mills-Cockell as Sheila Zellner

I do realize this is yet another horror film, but I was bored, this is what I found. I will get into more non-horror in the new year.

Parents is a film that I watched when I was too young to understand it. I found it very boring as a kid because I didn't realize why this kid hated his parents so much and had no idea about the concept of cannibalism. There was also the fact that I never got to finish it because my aunt figured it out before I did. I was way too young to see people eating people.

When you get older, sometimes you revisit the movies you saw as a kid just to put the bits you remember into context. I rented this along with Flesh Eating Mothers in my teens and I was still bored. Flesh Eating Mothers went for shock value and dark comedy. This...this is just dull. Parents tries really hard to be a black comedy. It's like a Goosebumps story with slightly more gore about a kid who realizes it's not a question of what he's eating but who he's eating. His parents are angered that he would even question this way of life, and you get the impression that it's only a matter of time before they're fattening him up for dinner.

But this movie suffers by making such an inexperienced young actor the centerpiece of the film. A child actor who had only this film as a role before dropping out entirely. Even the worst of kids (Jake Lloyd, for example), seem to be full of energy. That's what kids do. This one never seems like he has the time or the patience to be a part of this. It makes it hard to want to follow his adventures.

Bob Balaban would go on to make the dark comedy My Boyfriend's Back, which is a lot more slapsticky with its humor and more on-the-nose. I think that's more Balaban's forte, as this subtle approach to a dark topic doesn't ever cause moments of laughter. Its tone is all over the place. We're supposed to laugh at the cheesiness of the time it's set, but it's juxtaposed with some horrific subject matter that isn't given the weight it deserves and played up by a cast of people trying too hard (Quaid) or not trying hard enough (Madorsky). It's very easy to take something like murder and poke fun at it. You wouldn't think so, but it is. The Burbs is a great example of this. Hot Fuzz is another. And yes, I think in the hands of an Edgar Wright or Joe Dante, Parents could have been great. Instead it's just a dull, mediocre watch.

Score: 4.5