Have your kids ever enraged you so much you could almost kill them?
That’s the setup for the new Nicolas Cage comedy-horror flick “Mom and Dad,” in which all the world’s parents mysteriously develop an insatiable urge to off their offspring.
But this lousy movie doesn’t land its punchline.
“Mom and Dad” aspires to be a scary suburban satire like “Get Out” or “Hot Fuzz.” But watching adults murder or attempt to murder toddlers, teens and even a newborn baby just isn’t funny. At times, it’s downright sickening.
Other movies that put kids in unsettling situations, such as “Room” and “Doubt,” have important points to make and ask big questions. This, however, is a confection with no excuse for causing its viewers to feel like they’ve taken up self-flagellation as a hobby.
The violence isn’t egregiously gruesome or gratuitous, but the circumstances are upsetting enough to make you look away often — or just get up and leave.
Cage, playing a sad dad, does fine work here regardless. Like his character in “Moonstruck,” the man develops an unshakable infatuation. Only, in 1987, his obsession was marrying Cher; now, it’s suffocating his children with gasoline. Cage provides one of the few chuckle-worthy moments, however, when he takes a sledgehammer to a slate pool table while singing “The Hokey Pokey.”
Cage vs. Pool Table. Now, that’s entertainment!
As his wife and the mom of his teen daughter and young son, Selma Blair is similarly strong. She’s the perfect embodiment of mommy malaise, and makes Joan Crawford look like Betty Crocker.
But a couple of great performances and well-paced direction from Brian Taylor (also the film’s writer) is worthless when seeing helpless kids in such physical and emotional trauma has you longing for an out-of-theater experience.