Blu-ray Review: Mom and Dad

By John Corrado

★★ (out of 4)

When a mysterious outbreak starts spreading that reverses nurturing instincts and causes parents to spontaneously kill their kids, siblings Carly (Anne Winters) and Jack (Zackary Arthur) find themselves having to fight off their crazy mom (Selma Blair) and dad (Nicolas Cage).

Directed by Crank‘s Brian Taylor, and having premiered as part of TIFF’s highly lauded Midnight Madness programme last year, Mom and Dad is an example of a genre film that strives to be great trash, but it doesn’t really live up to that promise.

The film takes many of its cues from schlocky exploitation movies of decades past, and has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek with a darkly comic tone, but it never realizes its true potential as either a thriller or pitch black satire of suburban parenting malaise.  There are some crazy Nicolas Cage moments here that are amusing to watch, but Mom and Dad is ultimately somewhat of a disappointment, and falls short of being the cult classic that it clearly wants to be.  It passes the time late at night, and some viewers are sure to get a kick out of it, but it’s not much more than that.

The Blu-ray includes no bonus features.

Mom and Dad is a VVS Films release.  It’s 85 minutes and rated 14A.