Mom and Dad

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An epidemic breaks out that leads to parents trying to kill their children. From the minute I saw the trailer for this movie, I was intrigued. From the beginning of the movie, I felt like I understood the four main characters. The main character is a girl named Carly (played by Anne Winters). She does some pretty unlikable, awful things near the beginning of the movie. The character (and performance) ultimately does work for me overall. She feels like a teenage girl, but she genuinely wants to make sure her little brother is all right. Knowing the premise going in was something I found fascinating. Writer and director Brian Taylor truly seems to understand tension. If you know the premise, you do watch this movie wondering what is finally going to set the parents off, and I thought it was really well handled. By far, the best performers in the movie are Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair. Blair gives her mother character (named Kendall) some genuine emotion. She’s a woman who just wants to have a relationship with her daughter. But they make sure to put extra moments in the movie to show that she is a caring mother even amid the epidemic. By far, the thing I took away from this movie was that Brian Taylor truly understood how to utilize Nicolas Cage. He gets some good dramatic moments. However, the man is truly at his best when he gets to let loose anytime he’s in a movie. This is the craziest I think he has been in a long time. As much as I honestly loved this movie, I did have a minor nitpick I wanted to address. There’s a character in the movie, and they do things with this character that takes a little bit more suspension of disbelief than even I expected out of this movie.

9 / 10