Mr_Ectoplasma In the 1950s, young Michael moves with his parents, Nick and Lily, to the suburbs after his father gets a job working at a chemical factory called Toxico. Michael has a tempestuous relationship with his parents, generated by escalating fears that they may in fact be cannibalistic serial killers.I will admit that I had low expectations of this film, as the premise sounds, of course, ridiculous. But let me tell you: the premise is misleading you if your expectation is a cheap and straightforward horror movie. Part satire, part pastiche, and absolutely macabre, "Parents" is something like "Leave it to Beaver" or your favorite "Brady Bunch" episode trampled underfoot by "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." While it reads as absurd, director Bob Balaban does a fantastic job crafting a vivid alternate universe where the nuclear family is in fact grossly deformed just underneath the sheen of all-American purity.I think it's inarguable that the material is greatly elevated by all involved here—from Balaban to stars Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt, there is a solid crew of actors and filmmakers at work here. The late and great Sandy Dennis appears as well as a bohemian social worker trying to help Michael sort through what she believes are paranoid fantasies. Bryan Madorsky, who never acted in another film before or after this, is sympathetic enough as the core of the film, even when his acting is less than convincing.Above all, I think that the script does a fantastic job at playing on childhood fears and anxieties that nearly anyone can relate to. While we may not all have suspected our parents were serial killers (or cannibals, no less), the film takes the parts of our parents' lives that we don't see while growing up, and makes them into something profoundly disturbing. The film is tonally unusual in the sense that it elides numerous elements—from fifties nostalgia to cannibalism—but there's a profound discomfort resulting from it that generates a near-constant state of tension. As much as we can laugh at the absurdity of it, we're still beholden to the child's perspective and perception of danger.Overall, "Parents" is a diamond in the rough, and dare I say one of the most original horror films of the late eighties. Slick direction and cheeky fifties nostalgia lend it an inevitable aesthetic flair, and the caliber of performers involved raises the bar considerably higher. As a horror-comedy, it's something of a rarity in that it manages to invoke dark humor with just the right timbre, effectively generating tension through vacillation. We're never really scared, but we're never really safe either. 9/10.

triggerhappyguy I liked this film, but I'm honestly torn between the aspects I liked and the obvious flaws. This film couldn't decide what it wanted to be. A dark comedy, a satire, a surrealist film, a thriller? In some ways, the film is a blend of all of these genres, but it sparsely executes any aspects of those genres effectively.There's not enough laughs for it to be a dark comedy. There's a scene in particular where a character is getting stabbed, whilst a '50s pop song plays. The delivery of the scene is like a thriller, yet the use of the song makes it feel like a comedy. I feel like an opportunity for some great dark comedy was missed (think Shaun of the Dead, with the use of the Queen song). The nods to '50s pop culture are cute at best. There's some suspense near the end, but we already know from the start that the parents are cannibals - so why was there a "big reveal" scene? The dream sequences are fun, but never really amount to much. It seems like the dreams were only added to make the audience think the lead character had a wild imagination, so that the "big reveal" scene would be even more shocking. Again, it's not really a secret that the parents are cannibals... the poster gives it away! The directing by Bob Balaban was quite good. Some fun takes, and great set up shots. Going back to the flaws though, it really feels like the director had a plethora of creative ideas, and wanted to fit them all in to one film. There's a a recurring theme of the colour red throughout... but then there's also a theme of the colour green... then both seem abandoned when the nearing the finale. It's like the director wanted to throw in some symbolism, or deep meaning, but then forgot about it due to focusing on another idea. It's sad, because I think Balaban is a creative director, and he went on to director a legit underrated cult classic - "My Boyfriend's Back". This film was more like a "my first cult film" than a true classic.The acting was great by all involved, especially Randy Quaid. The soundtrack was generally good, with the use of some '50s songs. The placement of the score was hit or miss though.Despite the flaws, there's something charming about the film. Maybe it's the '50s setting, or the surreal aspects, interesting direction, or even a surprisingly good performance from Randy Quaid. Whatever it is, this film has all the makings of a cult film... however, this is more like a cult not-so-classic.

RorschachKovacs Many critics seem eager to find some moral metaphor in the movie Parents to serve some political pet cause of theirs. Some films do have an obviously moral point to make, but Parents is not one of them. Other critics who attempt psychoanalysis of the movie's child protagonist Michael do have some rather fascinating hypotheses and alternate interpretations of events that occur in this movie, but I contend that the movie works quite well enough when taken at face value: it's just a story about a fairly ordinary (if rather shy and withdrawn) little boy whose suspicions about where his parents are getting their meat prove to be well founded, and how he deals with this rather disturbing situation.Most who attempt to categorize this film place it firmly in the horror comedy genre, claiming that it uses the parents' cannibalism to "satirize" family life in the suburbs in the 1950s. While the conclusion is valid enough, I contend that this premise is faulty: at no point does the movie Parents ever make fun of the 1950s, the nuclear family, or suburbia. (In fact, the beauty of the setting actually makes it look like growing up in a nuclear family in the suburbs in the 1950s would actually be pretty swell, as long as you didn't happen to have cannibals or domestic abusers for parents.) Actually, there are really only two real jokes in this movie. One of these is rather a meta-joke, since it's the title. In the tradition of a great many "animal attack" horror flicks, the title of Parents manages to name the central threat of the movie in just one word; and just to take the absurdity a little more over the top, it's scribbled across the cover in clichéd dripping red lettering. Thus does whoever titled this movie manage to lampoon this tradition by pointing out that nearly any noun scrawled across a cover in dripping red is a convincing title for a horror movie. The other joke, at the end of the movie, is basically the punchline to the whole story: yeah, if your parents' mystery meat turned out to be human flesh, you'd never trust another meat sandwich anyone handed you either, would you?If this movie really does have any purpose other than to play upon our common childhood fears for fun and profit, I'd say it's to point out the difference between an imagined horror and the real thing. One way Parents keeps us guessing about Michael's suspicions is by repeatedly showing us that his imagination tends to exaggerate traumatic memories. In flashbacks to a mildly traumatic incident in which he caught his (still mostly clothed) parents engaging in sexual foreplay, for instance, his imagination turns the lipstick they both had smeared on their mouths into a great splatter of blood dripping from their chins as if they'd just been messily devouring a raw corpse. While one can easily understand how his imagination could mix up two taboo subjects that are otherwise unrelated, this does call the accuracy of all his other perceptions into question.This difference, in fact, is at the heart of the entire conflict on which the story turns. Splattering characters and scenery with blood makes sense in war stories, since the chaos of war typically doesn't allow anybody on the job much time to take care of personal hygiene. For stories in more orderly settings, such as a relatively prosperous 1950s suburban neighborhood, having everyone splattered with blood makes no sense whatsoever. As historians and sociologists can testify, anyone who actually butchers humans on a regular basis typically sanitizes this practice as much as possible through ceremony and ritual and orderly disposal of the remains. In keeping with this reality, what actual cannibalism Michael encounters in this movie is all very sanitary: evidently, his parents are very careful to drain off any excess blood before processing their "long pork" for dinner. The only bloody messes we ever see until the final act are in Michael's overactive imagination.To Parents' credit, once it's revealed that yes, Michael's parents really are cannibals, the focus shifts immediately not to his disgust and horror at the cannibalism itself, but to the moral dilemma of what to do now that he knows. As his father points out, Michael doesn't really get along with society and its mores any better than they do, his only friend being a similarly quirky young girl who's a bit of an outcast herself. Also, try as he might to deny it, he and his parents really do love each other, and if he exposes their crimes to the world, he'll lose them. His parents haven't personally wronged him, and there's been nothing to indicate they'd ever killed anybody before now. Yet they demand at the very least that he stay silent about a murder they've just committed, and are pressing him to join them in eating the victim.The way out of this dilemma this movie ultimately provides Michael, I think, proves just a little too morally convenient for the audience, though no less viscerally disturbing. Still, as in another masterpiece of horror, V.C. Andrews' infamous novel Flowers In The Attic, this movie does demonstrate the truly horrifying reality that under enough stress even true love can go cold and even genuinely loving relationships be destroyed. For all his strictness and vaguely creepy behavior, I like to think that originally, Michael's father really did love his son; as for his mother, the movie leaves no doubt that she loved her son right to the bitter end, even as she still loved his father.In the end, the greatest horror this horror movie provokes in its viewers is the moral horror of Michael's being forced to choose between the loving thing to do and the right thing to do; which in the final analysis, is the most compelling kind of horror of all.

rwint1611 THE PLOT: A boy starts to believe his 'perfect' and wholesome parents may actually be psychotic murderers.THE POSITIVE: Unlike some of the other silly B-horror films from the 80's era this one doesn't just play it for laughs. There are some genuinely creepy undertones here including a scene where the boy imagines himself falling into a giant pool of blood. The killings are also all done in slow motion, which is pretty cool. The movie also does a good job of keeping the viewer guessing as to whether the parents are really killers or it is all just a part of the boy's already overactive imagination. Sandy Dennis is given a supporting role that is much to undistinguished for a actress of her caliber and yet she is still able to make the most of it. She has a real nice stylishly short and curly haircut and she looks probably better here than she ever did. It is almost hard to fathom that just three years later she would be dead and this would be her second to last movie. This film also does a real good job of photographing food. If you watch this on an empty stomach you most likely will end up getting really hungry.THE NEGATIVE: The kid is the one who actually ends up being creepier than any of the adults. He has real big gloomy looking eyes, he blurts out strange things, and mumbles his lines which sometimes makes him hard to understand. There are certain elements that could have been played up a little bit more, but the most infuriating thing about this whole film is the fact that it never makes it clear whether the parents really were killers or it was just made up.THE LOWDOWN: This film has a little bit more going for it than most B-horror films from the 80's and it does manage to keep you guessing. However the nebulous ending pretty much kills it. The child actor playing the part of the kid is not a very good performer and at times even becomes annoying.THE RATING: 5 out of 10.