31 Days of Fright, Day 6: Parents

Welcome to day 6 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Jonathan takes a bite out of the suburban cannibal film...

PARENTS
1989
Rated R

From the original, Soylent Green, to the Hannibal franchise, movies about people eating other people are abundant in the horror genre. But Parents really flipped the genre on its ear (and then ate it). Briefly, it's about a young boy (actually called "The Boy" in the end credits) who moves with his parents into a peaceful little suburb. Though they never really discuss the time frame they're in, it's fairly obvious it's set in the 1950's. Every night for dinner his parents serve up huge platters of freshly cooked meat, and for a while, the boy doesn't ask twice about it. But when he does start questioning where all the meat is coming from, his parents suddenly become closed off, almost offended. He drops it for a bit, but plagued by fiendish nightmares and insatiable curiosity, he presses further only to find that his dad has been bringing his work home with him...from the mortuary...and serving it for dinner! Things really spiral out of control when he decides to tell his friend from school and his social worker about his folks' bizarre eating habits.

This movie is described as a horror comedy by many film sites, and on Netflix, but I didn't feel it could fit in that category at all. This movie is strictly horror. Sure, there's satire throughout, and the tone almost feels Fido-esque, but the level of creepiness is off the charts. Particularly the dad, played wonderfully well by Randy Quaid. His attitude and demeanor throughout the whole film is creepy and mysterious, and his character alone really upholds the eeriness of the movie. The way he coaxes his son to eat, knowing full well he's shoveling his boy full of items excavated from corpses, and especially the way he handles his son's several acts of disobedience. His lectures are always hinting at something completely sinister, as the boy's mother stands behind her husband one hundred per cent, maintaining a creepy and lifeless grin the whole time.

One thing that really stood out in this film was the cinematography. When the boy first begins to get suspicious, he has horrible nightmares almost every night. These scenes are done spectacularly well, and are reminiscent of both Stephen King's It and The Shining. Some of them actually gave me chills a couple times. And the way they portray the food is probably my favorite part of this whole film. I don't know what they did to accomplish this, but every time a meal is being prepared or food is being set down on the table, it just looks so disgusting and unappetizing. Perhaps that's because they hint (very strongly) early on that these people are eating their neighbors, or because of the angles they filmed these scenes in. Whatever they did, they did it right in this respect. Every plate just looks like the mangled remains of other people, and you can see why the boy almost never eats throughout the whole movie. Also, the way in which the parents are shown throughout the film was genius. Most of the angles of them are looming and ominous, portraying the lack of choice children have in looking up to the people who raised them (even if you have just realized that they're flesh-eating maniacs). There are many things done very well in this movie, but there are also several things that just rubbed me the wrong way.

The motivation for these people is nowhere to be found. I can't really decide whether that's good or bad, but it left me feeling confused and frustrated. The actions at the end of the movie are so wildly out of the blue and bizarre, it leaves the viewer wondering why, how, and most of all what?! Also, the boy seems to have no emotion whatsoever. Even when he finds himself in the midst of what will probably be the most traumatic time of his life, he remains cool as a cucumber through most of it. This felt very awkward to me, and out of place. His intense curiosity at the beginning is replaced immediately by apathy. I also had a very hard time getting behind any of the characters. The "hero" might as well be on life support somewhere and the parents are far too bizarre to be relateable. The boy's social worker is your typical "oh you're just being paranoid, come on down to the cellar with me and i'll show - uh-oh" type of character; very expendable and really pointless to the story.

I didn't laugh once at this "comedy" but it is exceedingly dark and I can see how people would find a lot of the satire amusing, it just didn't sit well with me. But it definitely is creepy for a lot of it and seeing the time-frame mixed with the subject matter is really fun to watch. If you enjoy dark comedies you might enjoy this movie, and if you enjoy cannibalism stories, you'll probably love this movie. I can definitely see why it's a cult classic, but it didn't hold my attention and I found its message ultimately confusing and lacking structure.

6/10

-JONATHAN



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