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Lena, a Polish
girl, is working at an airport where
she meets Birdie. Birdie seems like a nice girl and
she keeps saying such great things about her family
so when Birdie tells Lena that her dad can drive
her home after work, Lena figures that it should be
fine. What Lena doesn't know is that something is
very wrong with Birdie's parents, VERY wrong.
£100,000 budget?! Are you freaking kidding me? I was
sitting there wondering why this got such a limited
release in the UK seeing as how it looks like a
million dollar production at least. I can not believe
that these guys managed to make something this
slick and professional-looking on such a limited
budget. Mum & Dad is a little bit of The Girl Next
Door and a little bit of All The Boys Love Mandy
Lane. At times I felt that it tried too hard to be
shocking and disturbing but for most of the time,
Mum & Dad is an outstanding and terrifyingly suspenseful
horror movie. Seriously, this one grabs you by the
balls. I haven't been this positively surprised by
a British horror flick since Broken.
The movie tells the story of two very demented parents
who kidnap teens and force them to become their
adoptive children. If they disobey their rules, they
will be severely punished - or worse. Their latest
victim, Lena, seems to know exactly how to play this
game though - but everyone makes mistakes and Lena
has no plans on staying in this disturbed family.
Like I said before, the only issue I had with Mum
and Dad was that it seemed as if it was trying to
compete with other recent torture porn movies a bit
too much and sometimes lost focus on the story. Still,
this isn't your run-of-the-mill torture-porn flick,
this actually has a story worth following. Even without
the gore this would've been a great movie.
I'm not sure how the general audiences will react
towards a movie like Mum & Dad though as it's clearly
more aimed towards the hardcore horror crowd. Well,
for you teens out there, if you're looking for a horror
film more shocking and terrifying than Saw, you've
found it. Writer and director Steven Sheil obviously
had a strong point of view going into this project
and I think that he should be very satisfied with the
result. Everyone turns in great performances and
even though Lena's character could've been a bit
deeper, we still feel for her as she does all the
things that we probably would have done. She doesn't
make your ordinary stupid horror movie moves like
where the blonde girl goes into the basement and
asks if anyone's there.
Probably too extreme for most people but if you're a
big horror fan, you'll probably end up enjoying
Mum & Dad which, according to me, is one of the best
horror films of the year. I really think this is a
hate it or love it film though and I can also understand
why some people may end up disliking it. Give it a
chance though if you're into sick but brilliant stuff.
Let's not go into detail here. It's better that way.
Not a lot of music in this one to be honest with
you, and it worked quite well to give it that raw
feeling that they were probably going for.
A very pleasant surprise from the country that seems
to be on the top of things when it comes to horror.
It's certainly unfortunate that the local horror
productions in the UK are performing poorly at the
box-office these days. Either way, Mum & Dad is a
terrific horror flick and I strongly recommend it.
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