Well lets go ahead and jump in with:
Never in a million years would I have believe I'd be this creeped out by Randy Quaid. Billed as a dark comedy satire of the 1950's, Parents creates a twisted vision of a Norman Rockwell family sitting at the dinner table to a meal of "leftovers" where Mom's mystery meat is... uh... well, its fucking people. It is really not that gory, but there is an awful lot of meat being chopped, seasoned, ground, and fried; with the implication that it is human, it actually becomes really gross. While I can immediately see where the humor in this is intended to be, the mom joyfully milling about the kitchen preparing classic Betty Crocker cookbook recipes, with cheesy 50's Library music playing in the background, with the added implication that it's human meat coming out of the grinder...was actually really off-putting. The cinematography here is very interesting actually, and I was taken aback by the surreal, tense, and generally uncomfortable tone achieved here. There is some humor present--a few Dr. Strangelove-esque jokes poking fun at the whole military-industrial complex, and a couple sight-gags. The main things I found uncomfortable in the movie were the kids. This specifically was discomfiting, because you would think the family's little boy would play the role of the "Alice", the normal character that the audience connects with and reacts to all the crazy shit. Um...in Parents, this is not the case. Our little protagonist is creepy as shit. He might even be creepier, though in a sad way. When he comes to school and shares with his teacher and guidance counselor the glimpses of the evil his parents commit, they assume what's going on is a more common form of child abuse or that the kid's got some psychiatric disorder. I am not entirely sure if this misdiagnosis was supposed to be funny, but it was mostly just unsettling, as was the thought of cannibalistic parents preying upon a child. The other child character, a little girl, is pretty heart-breaking as well--the abuse she faces at home from an alcoholic mother (which is never actually shown in the movie, but is clearly hinted at) seemed disturbingly real, and I really felt that plot was a little inappropriate for the genre of movie I thought I was watching. The level of tension was higher than I expected, and it never really broke in a satisfying way. The surreal, dream-like film style, mixed with very unsettling themes of child abuse, took the foreground for me and I couldn't quite chuckle as much as I wanted to at the satirization of the prototypical White American 50's family. By the way, the implication here is that the Suburban-American dream came from the subjugation of other people in some manner, and therefore is a form of cannibalism. I feel like I really want to like this movie, and I would suggest it for people with a strong stomach and a sense for black humor and satire; however, the one viewing I've had of it thus far was actually a rather uncomfortable experience.
There is a lot of drinking in the movie, but Gibsons and wine are too elementary. This off kilter, kinda gross movie needs a kinda gross cocktail:
The Bloody Bull
2 oz Vodka
2 dashes of Worcestershie Sauce
2 oz beef buillon
2 oz tomato juice
Shake with ice and serve in a glass with a lemon wedge. Make sure you make enough for when you have the neighbors for dinner.
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