“Mom And Dad” is a black comedy horror flick that contains various moments that seem to just represent the filmmakers begging for controversy. Parts of it are legitimately funny but a lot of it is very dull. For every goofy scene that will make you smile, there are two or three that decimate your interest in the overall product.

An unexplained phenomenon sees parents try to murder their own children. Carly (Anne Winters “Night School”) and Josh (Zackary Arthur “The 5th Wave”) struggle to survive when their parents (Nicolas Cage “Snake Eyes”, Selma Blair “Cruel Intentions”) do their best to kill them.

Let me perfectly honest by making it clear that I did not give a damn about the kids in this movie. The Carly character is a whiny brat and Josh has no discernible personality. The other kids in the film are not any better. Nicolas Cage is great when he is allowed to act completely insane but unfortunately, we have to wait until the last half of the movie before we get to see him let loose. Selma Blair is rather bland. The chemistry between the two is rather weak. Near the end of the film, Nicolas Cage’s characters parents show up so Lance Henriksen (“Aliens”) gets a brief cameo.

The violence in this film is pretty extreme. We see scenes of a parent trying to suffocate a kid with plastic bags, a mother trying to stab her new-born baby and a couple attempting to gas their children. All of this just seems to smell of desperation. The moments where Nicolas Cage is allowed to act like a wild animal are definitely the highlights of “Mom And Dad”. Aside from the Cage performance, it just feels like it’s mixing “The Purge”, “The Crazies” and “The Visit”. If that sounds like your kind of thing then check it out.