Parents (1989)

Director: Bob Balaban

Starring: Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis

A young boy living in 1950s suburbia suspects his parents are cannibalistic murderers.

Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt star as the titular parents. Bryan Madorsky (who sadly never pursued acting) stars as their young son, Michael. Bryan’s performance was very good.

The family has just moved to a new town. Michael is afraid of the dark, and although his parents are supportive of him – kind and caring – we can’t help but ‘feel’ everything is not normal with this family. Plagued by nightmares, Michael starts believing his dreams might actually be real, and he becomes suspicious of his parents’ eating habits.

Although it becomes clear Michael’s parents are cannibals, this is never shown or confirmed throughout the movie. Through clever editing we safely believe them to be cannibals. I enjoyed the fact most of the horror elements were left to the imagination, and not shown.

Set in the 50’s, I rather enjoyed the production design and set decoration. ‘Parents’ is a slow descent into pure terror, and it’s very effective. It is well written with good performances. The only thing about this film I couldn’t understand, was the choice of music. While the events were terrifying, the music pretty much turned it into a comedy. As such, the film is never as scary as it could have been. Replace the score with haunting one and this would have been one hell of a creepy film. Even the climax features a comedic score. Very odd indeed.

On a budget of $3 million the film only earned $870,000 at the box office. Ouch!

Would I watch it again? Not sure.