Horror Daily Double: Mom and Dad, Parents

The acid-soaked Mandy has put Nicolas Cage on the comeback trail in a big way, though an earlier movie had already suggested that there was still a lot of mileage left in Cage’s over-the-top acting and freakouts if applied to a horror setting. Mom and Dad unites Cage and Selma Blair as man-and-wife who seemingly have everything: careers, beautiful kids, a big house in a safe, manicured neighborhood. Everything…except time. Seems all the adults are feeling the sting of years slipping through their fingers because all are suddenly turning on their kids and disposing of them however violently they can. Cage rages as a man who’s traded in his Trans Am and hot babes for granola bars and a double chin, while Blair simmers, seethes, and snarls as a woman whose climb towards middle age means getting shut out from career and social opportunities. All in all, a potent exploration of youth-obsessed culture and millennial resentment.

Available on FandangoNOW, YouTube, Google Play, Hulu

Much subtler than Mom and Dad, yet just as twisted, Parents is set in typically picturesque 1950s where 10-year-old Michael is disturbed after recurring nightmares, isolation in a new school, and watching his mom and dad have sex, and is now convinced they’re cannibals. Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt play the title duo whose smiling, all-American veneer begins to crack with each suspicious plate of meat served at the dinner table, and as Michael investigates to get a definitive answer. Boomer nostalgia for the ’50s was a concrete staple of the ’80s — Back to the Future or Hoosiers, anyone? Parents director Bob Balaban sticks a fork in bygone decade worship and claims, “We’re done!”

Available on YouTube, Google Play, Vudu