Parents (1989)

Comedy, Horror, Mystery,

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Parents did not fare well when landed in theaters back in 1989, receiving so-so reviews and bombing at the box office. Thankfully, time has been kinder to Bob Balaban‘s dark cannibal comedy. For years, the film was shuffled around on DVD double features and horror collections, but in the meantime, it became a cult classic and finally got a Blu-ray release early this year. Hopefully, that means Parents will get a boost in popularity because the twisted satire juxtaposes suburban 1950s Americana and macabre flesh-eating violence to distinctly delightful results.

Parents stars Bryan Madorsky as Michael Laemle, a young boy terrorized by nightmares of blood and meat who suspects his idyllic suburban parents — played with delirious menace by Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt —  are serving him unsavory sustenance; his daily sweetbreads, if you will. And he’s right, because his parents are a pair of stone-cold psychos with a hunger for human flesh and a regular supply of fres flesh.

Balaban directs Parents with a meat cleaver, carving out a mean slice of comedy in the midst of dark and deranged horrors. When concerned school officials interfere, Parents swells into a symphony of clashing tones. It’s a fucked in the head horror comedy that turns the domestic realm of safety upside down to equally hilarious and heinous results.