Delayed Reaction: Mom & Dad

The Pitch: Is it possible to make a campy horror movie on purpose that isn't trying to be a bad horror movie?

A mysterious disease spreads that causes parents to try to kill their children.

It's a common misconception that "campy" means "bad". It's an understandable mistake. Camp is defined by an earnest indulgence that lines up with things we normally see in bad movies. For example. it's hard to tell the difference between crazy costuming and bad costuming. If a story takes an intentionally off-kilter detour, it's natural to immediately think it's a mistake. It takes so much focus to make camp intentionally that most people think you can only make camp on accident. But people sure do try anyway.

Mom & Dad is a respectable attempt. The pieces are all in the right place. It casts Nic Cage, which is like a camp cheat code. Selma Blair balances out Cage's crazy really well. The premise is over-the-top in a way that invites camp. The premise is easy to understand but under-explained enough to feel uncanny. The story allows characters to dial it to 11 at a moment's notice. I think it does everything right.

Yet, it still falls short of the necessary level of camp to work for me. There's something fundamentally different about Nic Cage yelling about the bees in The Wicker Man and him saying "It's a Sawzall. That means it saws ALL!" in this. The Sawzall line is bad, and it's useful to explain the unfair standards of camp.

• That line delivered poorly in a bad movie is forgettable.
• That line delivered earnestly by an Oscar-winner, doing everything he can to make it work, is campy and wonderful.
• That line, when a director says "It's a bad line, but it works if you do everything you can to sell it" is an intentionally bad line. (I'm pretty sure this is one applies to Mom & Dad).

It's not possible to be earnest and ironic at the same time. Or, at least, I don't have the capacity in my brain to figure out how to do it. And that's where this movie falls short.

Mom & Dad isn't great. It is pretty fun though and made more skillfully than it needs to be. Perhaps if I had a looser definition of camp, I would've liked it a lot more.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend