A Caged Double Feature- Part 2: Can You Hear the Caged Dad Kill?

If you, like me, ever find yourself endlessly wondering "Where can I finally scratch the itch I have of watching Nicolas Cage have an emotional breakdown with a sledgehammer while singing an obscene version of the Hokey Pokey?" well... I have good news and bad news.
The good news: It's this movie.
The bad news: You and I both need some fuckin' therapy.

Let's talk about dead kids!!

Caution: May Contain Nuts

Have you ever watched a film then gone "Well, where the HELL did THAT come from?" Well, in my experience, the answer to that question is half the fun of watching movies. Finding out who is behind something, what else they've done, and what they are doing now is a lot of fun for me. And telling you is most of the reason that I do it! So, let's talk about Brian Taylor.
As one half of the directing/writing/daredevil film-making duo of Neveldine/Taylor, he is partially responsible for bringing you such cinematic delights as Crank and its sequel Crank: High Voltage, Gamer, the second Ghost Rider film, the better than I hoped but still kinda weird Spirit of Vengeance, and the transcendent trashiness that is the tv series Happy! He and his partner threw themselves into their films quite literally, occasionally having themselves rigged to their own suspended cameras to make sure they got the right shot in their hyper-kinetic gore-ballets of action.
I knew of, enjoyed, and in some cases loved all of these before seeing Mom and Dad (and I love when a movie is named after it's monsters *wink*), but I hadn't caught that it was him making it when I watched it the first time. If I had, I might have been ready.
I'm really glad I wasn't.
So, who thinks they can take their parents? Show of hands? Anyone wanna weigh in? ....Yeah, it's a weird thought isn't it? But it's one this film brings up time and again, and one of the things that really struck me as this movie rolled along was how fully this film commits to the premise and finds as many ways as possible to explore it before settling in to the main drag of the story. As for anyone with kids....you think you could take them out? If you put your mind to it?

What if you had some prep time, some deep stretching, and a pick-axe?

That core concept is what really drives this movie into it's very weird niche of exploitative trashiness meets domestic farce, a hybrid I've seen done weirder in only a few places, in bizarre indie fare like Flexing with Monty or Meet the Hollowheads, and neither with this manic intensity.
(Somebody remind me to do pieces on both these films sometime, by the by...)
Much like our piece yesterday, the story revolves around the struggles at the heart of a family headed by Nicolas Cage as they are overwhelmed by the inexplicable changes to their world that suddenly overtake them. Unlike our subject yesterday, this one starts crazy. It features some wild, choppy editing between scenes and smash cuts to indicate inner thoughts or memories, but overall we follow Brent, played by Cage, and Kendall, played by Selma Blair (from the good Hellboy movies!) two well-off suburban parents (They can even afford a maid, and they're cool enough to let her bring her daughter to help babysit!) of two precocious youngsters, teenage Carly and grade-schooler Josh.
The standard issues are at play at first, Kendall and Carly aren't as close as they used to be, she's keeping secrets, while Dad and his boy keep goofing off and taking nothing seriously.
Until Josh throws a ball at Nic's head and he makes THIS face.

Coupled with the line "Ten...is not a guarantee, son." 

Yeah, something is definitely...off in the world. And this gets explored over the next hour and 20ish minutes as it becomes clear: all over the world, with no explanation, across basically all strata of life, parents are turning on their offspring. Savagely. They even use the term "savaging" at one point, describing the practice in the animal kingdom of creatures devouring offspring in times of stress and shortage, along with a cameo by Scottish comics writer and magical thinking advocate Grant Morrison as a talking head in one of the many harrowing newscasts that dot the first act of the film, as it becomes steadily more apparent that there isn't anywhere to hide from this: the human race is going obsolete, and it's time to recall the newer models.
This part of the film is where it really shines, exploring and contorting and elaborating on it's bizarre and anathema concept. Standout scenes include a crowd of parents patiently waiting for their kids to finish SATs before going in silently en masse, a stampede of parents pursuing teens across a football field, and the haunting shot of a man in a swimming pool stolidly drowning a child like he has other shit to do. Outside of the cause being related to a mysterious transmission, this outbreak of behavior is given no explanation. Aliens? Terrorists? Wrath of a spiteful God? Doesn't matter.
What matters is one of the scenes in this picture made me nearly look away, a feat few films achieve and I applaud it for. I love fearless artists, and I know that Taylor is among their ranks. The horror in this horror comedy is pretty intense, but the way that it leans into the comedy is by leaning hard into the absurdity of parents going about their business then getting hardwired to destroy their kids and still carrying on as if it's one more chore to do today.

"OH, and honey remind me to rinse this mallet, or else it's gonna stink up the kitchen..."

This isn't to say all of it is gonzo, jet-black comedy. In fact some of it is quite heart-wrenching. The scene I mentioned at the very beginning is later in the film, but takes place before the hysteria sweeps the country, and it's mostly about that feeling that sets in when you're trying to be happy with something you've never wanted, but were convinced you did. Nic struggles with the dichotomy of being cool and responsible. The emotions between Nic and Selma are a hundred percent real in that scene, and Selma is the stand-out in this movie early on, as she tries to rejoin a world that seems to belittle her for having been a mother first and not a career woman, when the entire world told her first to be a mother and not to wait. And the saddest scene for me is when it confronts a question maybe some of you have already asked yourself: What about abusive parents? When Carly's boyfriend comes home from taking the hardest test of his life to his slovenly father decking him in the face, his first reaction is "THIS shit again?" and is thus still off guard when the assault escalates higher and higher. 
Now, this film does have a few issues. Aside from its content being a thing that is going to scare off lots of folks or make them not take it very seriously, it also has a few pacing issues- an odd trait for a film that clocks in under 90 minutes.
It should be a lean, slick machine like the muscle car Nic keeps lovingly restored in his garage (because of course he does). BUt instead, once the film gets everything very firmly established, we have quite a few slower scenes in the house, keeping the parents at arms length while the kids try to figure out how to survive. They're still interesting, but it results in the first half being much more memorable than the second if it wasn't for the usual tour-de-force masterclass in go big or go bigger that is Nicolas Cage.

"Oh, now... you didn't forget about me, didja?!?!?!"

OF COURSE WE'RE GONNA TALK ABOUT THIS, WHY DO YOU THINK I'M WRITING THIS THING? (aside from the very real apocalyptic event outside making me unable to focus on anything else other than if I'm doing something interesting or productive to stave off a sense of inevitable doom and panic that this is it guys, this is really fucking it, like *deeeep inhale*.....sorry, what was I saying?) RIGHT.
Nic Cage is a nutso wonder in Mom and Dad.
Once it's time to cut loose, Nic knows how to do it. And one of the reasons i think he does it so well in this one is because this is of course his second rodeo with Brian Taylor, since they were first teamed on Spirit of Vengeance together. The Ghost Rider movies are odd beasts, with the first one being about as bog standard as you can get for an early 2000s comic book movie, and the second being every departure from that you can imagine, being engaging, funny and charming while STILL  not being terribly good. I mean there's Idris Elba, a shot of Ghost Rider peeing like a flame thrower and Christopher Lambert in weird make-up and somehow this movie still kinda blew. BUT, one of the things it does right is let Cage off the leash and play the Rider how he wanted, complete with their own special brand of performance capture and letting him channel the spirit of the Loa and act like a stoned cobra. After making Nic force himself into the standard hero mold (a place he's never belonged, doing much better with the unconventional, or eccentric hero) he was happy to be trusted enough to go the full Frank Reynolds and get real weird with it. And that trust resonates with this production as well, as you can just feel how good a time he's having chewing scenery, cutting scenery, and puncturing scenery. His near-erotic fascination with his Sawz-All is... well, I'm glad they're happy together, relationships in Hollywood are tough.
And to top it off, the chemistry that Selma and Nic have as a couple, even when they're realistically dysfunctional, carries over into their homicidal mania, with their united front of destruction bringing their relationship into a better place than one suspects it's been in years.
The final cherry on top is hinted at in the trailers, but it is a pip of a surprise guest star turn from Lance Henriksen that finally brings this movie home to a place where even its strangely ambiguous ending doesn't bother me much. I like Lance in a different way to Nic, as I admire Henriksen for being the absolute workhorse he is, just keeping that constant level of quality whether it's in classics like Pumpkinhead or direct to video drivel where he's fighting Bigfoot or some shit.

And the day is coming for this Spirit of Vengeance too...

So, in the end, I know some of you reading this are NOT gonna like this movie. It has a lot of the same problems as Taylor's other work, but all of the same strengths, so it's really down to how much Nic Cage you need in your system...
Either way, it probably beats dinner with your in-laws.
NEXT TIME: WE BARK AT THE MOON...