{"id":8894,"date":"2024-11-25T15:02:17","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8894"},"modified":"2024-11-25T15:02:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:02:17","slug":"parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/25\/parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Parents <\/strong>(1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vestron Pictures\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some violence and gory images, a scene of sexuality, preteen drinking)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bob Balaban\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christopher Hawthorne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jonathan Elias\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ernest Day and Robin Vidgeon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 27, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis, Bryan Madorsky, Juno Mills-Cockell, Kathryn Grody, Deborah Rush, Graham Jarvis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $870,532 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS: I\u2019m writing this review from the perspective of the time in which it\u2019s set. I know gender roles have changed substantially since the dark days of pre-feminism 1958. I\u2019m not that far gone, not yet.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The dark comedy-horror Parents<\/strong> came out around the same time I started making regular trips to the big, bad city of Philadelphia to check out films I used to have to wait to see until they came out on video. At 21, I finally gathered up the courage to do the very thing my overprotective parents discouraged since I was old enough to show interest in seeing foreign or independent films that never made it to the suburbs. It was a huge step forward in my personal cinematic growth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Parents <\/strong>came out here in the spring sometime, playing at the Roxy Screening Rooms (20th<\/sup> & Samson) for a single week before making way for another indie flick. The preview looked promising, but I didn\u2019t get a chance to see it during its brief run. I had to wait until it hit video that summer to check it out. I wasn\u2019t impressed at the time. I liked that it was weird, but it just didn\u2019t click with me the same way Heathers and The Lair of the White Worm did. I ultimately relegated it to the recesses of my mind where it sat untouched for the next 35 years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You all know I\u2019m prone to rewatching movies- good, bad and everything in between- from back in the day. I\u2019m curious to find out if I like them any better or worse than I did as a younger, less seasoned moviegoer. I\u2019d been thinking about giving Parents<\/strong> another whirl for some time. I just needed to be in the right mood at the right time. The two things synched up perfectly this past Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Some movies are lost classics. That\u2019s not how I\u2019d describe Parents<\/strong>. It\u2019s definitely more interesting than I remember it being, but director Bob Balaban (yes, the actor from all the Christopher Guest mockumentaries!) has a hard time bringing it all together. I do like the idea behind it though. It\u2019s actually quite brilliant what the first-time feature filmmaker is going for. And what might that be? Read on, readers!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Balaban, working from a script by Christopher Hawthorne, taps into the hidden fears all children have of their parents. As little kids, what do they really know about the adults tasked with taking care of them? They go by \u201cDad\u201d and \u201cMom\u201d. He goes to \u201cwork\u201d everyday. She takes care of the house and cooks the meals. Their word is law; what they say goes. Who are they really? What really goes on after the kids go to bed? What if they\u2019re up to no good? What if they\u2019re really monsters, aliens or something worse? Are they keeping secrets? What\u2019s with the funny looks they exchange before answering a question? What if they\u2019re plotting against you in some way? These are the thoughts that keep kids awake at night.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set in 1958, Parents<\/strong> centers on the picture-perfect nuclear Laemle family- Dad (Quaid, National Lampoon\u2019s Vacation), Mom (Hurt, The World According to Garp) and 10YO Michael (Madorsky in his sole acting credit). They\u2019ve just moved to an idyllic suburban neighborhood in California to begin a new chapter in their life. On the surface, all seems fairly normal except it\u2019s really not. There\u2019s something bothering Michael, something he can\u2019t or won\u2019t put into words. He\u2019s definitely afraid of something having to do with his parents, but what? His odd behavior concerns his teacher (Grody, My Bodyguard) enough that she brings in a social worker, Millie Dew (Dennis, 976-EVIL), to assess him. He won\u2019t open up to her at first, but things eventually reach the point where he\u2019s too scared to not tell somebody of the potential danger he might be in at home.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s definitely something off about Michael\u2019s parents. It\u2019s like they\u2019re making an extra effort to seem normal, putting a lot of energy into maintaining a fa\u00e7ade of familial perfection. Dad, in his horn-rimmed glasses and dorky clothes, relates to his son in a way that suggests something sinister lurks beneath the surface. When the boy steps out of line, Dad always has a story with a lesson at the ready. He tells it in a calm but threatening manner that would rattle the most stoic kid. Mom, looking like the Stepford version of June Cleaver, spends all day in the kitchen preparing meals for her hungry men. She\u2019s an oblivious sort, content to smile and act like nothing\u2019s wrong. She shows all the classic signs of an abused wife. The parents have this thing about meat. There\u2019s always plenty of it on hand and they\u2019re forever trying to get Michael to eat his. He won\u2019t touch it. He knows something isn\u2019t kosher. He\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The one scene from Parents<\/strong> that always stuck with me was an exchange at the dinner table between Michael and his folks. It perfectly illustrates the parents\u2019 tendency to evade and deflect with jokes when confronted with questions they don\u2019t want to answer truthfully:<\/p>\n

Michael: \u201cWhat are we eating?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cLeftovers, honey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael: \u201cLeftovers from what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom: \u201cFrom the refrigerator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael: \u201cWe\u2019ve had leftovers every day since we moved here. I\u2019d like to know what they were before they were leftovers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad: \u201cBefore that, they were…. leftovers to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

CLASSIC PARENTAL DODGE! It speaks to the way parents keep kids in the dark when dealing with an uncomfortable truth. And that truth is…… Mom and Dad really are monsters…. in a sense. They\u2019re cannibals. Is it any wonder they can\u2019t accept the possibility of their only child being a vegetarian?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s hard to categorize Parents<\/strong>. It\u2019s never just one thing. It\u2019s black comedy, social satire and grisly horror awkwardly rolled into one. Balaban, whose directorial credits include the teen zombie comedy My Boyfriend\u2019s Back (1993) and the overlooked drama The Last Good Time (1994), struggles with balancing the three things. It\u2019s noticeably uneven in tone which, oddly enough, works in the film\u2019s favor in that it enhances its inherent strangeness. Call it a happy accident, I guess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances are spot-on primarily because the actors understand what they\u2019ve gotten themselves into with Parents<\/strong>. They get how truly warped it is and act accordingly. Quaid strikes a deft blend of Ward Cleaver and John List while Hurt nails the role of the happy housewife. She\u2019d be the ideal commercial spokeswoman for amphetamines. Madorsky left the limelight after just one movie. He went on to a career in accounting. Should he have stuck with acting? Who\u2019s to say? He\u2019s pretty good in Parents<\/strong> though. He crushes it as the weird kid in class whose only friend is the weird girl (Cockell, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss) who claims to be from the moon. Dennis has some good scenes as the somewhat off-center social worker who, in typical 50s fashion, doesn\u2019t think twice about smoking around kids.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I laughed a few times during Parents<\/strong>. The chemical company where Dad works is called Toxico. That one gave me a fit of the giggles as did the nerdy boss (Jarvis, Mr. Mom) who talks to Michael like he\u2019s narrating one of those dull educational films they show in school. Unfortunately, the movie is never fall-down hilarious or OTT gory. Balaban should have leaned into the comedy and horror more than he does. A nutty flick like Parents<\/strong> needs to be outrageous. It\u2019s a little too restrained for its own good. That\u2019s too bad, the potential for a great cult flick is right there. It misses by that much. Even so, it\u2019s still weird enough for the folks who dig that sort of that thing.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vestron Pictures\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some violence and gory images, a scene of sexuality, preteen drinking)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bob Balaban\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christopher Hawthorne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jonathan Elias\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ernest Day and Robin Vidgeon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 27, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis, Bryan Madorsky, Juno Mills-Cockell, Kathryn Grody, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-weird-ones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Parents-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9123,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894\/revisions\/9123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}