[Mum And Dad]
Plot:Mum and Dad, and their 'adopted' children, Birdie & Elbie, work at the airport. The family live off whatever they scavenge from cargo holds, offices and hotels - including a steady stream of transient workers who populate the airport's soulless hub. When Lena, a young Polish office cleaner, is befriended by Birdie, she gets drawn into a nightmarish world of torture, murder and perversity. Imprisoned in a suburban House of Horrors and designated a 'Mummy's Girl', Lena's only options appear to be to become part of the family - and join them in their insanity - or die.

Cast:Perry Benson, Dido Miles, Olga Fedori, Ainsley Howard, Toby Alexander.

My Thoughts:Stomach turning.

Review:As an american born horror fan, movies where crazies kidnap normal people -- and proceed to hold them hostage at their dirty, run down old houses in the sticks, with their equally insane family members -- is nothing new. It is however atleast a little bit new though when the brits try to do it in cinema. Which is what Steven Sheil's "Mum and Dad" is. The movie follows a family who work at the local airport.

Their daughter Birdie befriends a young office cleaner named Lena, and soon she decides to bring Lena over to her place to meet ehr family, Mum, Dad, and Birdie's brother Elbie. Once Lena arrives however, she is drugged and falls unconscious. She soon wakes up to realize that she will never see the outside world again. She has unwillingly become a part of Mum and Dad's family, and whether she wants to or not...they're gonna make her become a part of said family.

Like I said before, "Mum and Dad" is nothing new when you look at all the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies from part 2 through to "The Beginning". "Mum and Dad" is a film that's equally similar to those movies. A highly unbalanced group of people living under one roof, and taking a normal innocent human being hostage. Believing that sooner or later they'll break said person into wanting to be a part of their sick and twisted little family portrait. We're also exposed to the usual behaviors in movies like these such as perversion, insinuated rape, violence, the bound and gagging of people, etc.

So the movie plays out in very dark, dramatic, and at time stomach turning fashion with Mum and Dad being not only disgusting in appearance, but also in personality. And we're left to wait and see if young Lena will escape at the end after seeking bloody revenge of her captors. But while we're waiting for all of that to possibly occur, or Lena meeting a gruesome end...whichever one comes first, Director Sheil introduces us to these twisted characters, and gives us a huge glimpse into their backwards, sick, and twisted lifestyle.

There's something to be said about the underlying themes in the movie too, as these people work at the airport, and on the surface seem like the normal, white, suburban working class family. But their home life hides a deep, dark secret. Which is basically their activities towards people in this hidden house of horrors. It's a good paralell to the complex here in america called "window dressing", and how it's a common thing...even in Europe, where a face is put on for people on the outside. A face which is just used to mask the horrors taking place on the inside.

"Mum And Dad" may not be very original, but it works because it's performance driven and the director really pushes the disturbing content levels to new heights. He makes his characters so easy to hate, despise, and loathe. He makes them so cruel, mean, and downright evil. And the actors play these characters really well, thus it brings out a huge feeling of pity and sympathy for the films protagonist Lena. Who you hope at some point gets the H-E double hockeysticks out of there before the sickos end up killing her.

So who's more disgusting in the movie between Mum and Dad? Dad is definitely the grossest of the two, but that soon changes when the films third act begins and we are introduced to and exposed to more horrifying secrets which lurk within the house of Mum and Dad. Secrets which pretty much push the films upchuck-inducing levels into hyperspace in one of the movies more stomach turning scenes where Lena enters a room full of flies and gets a nasty surprise strapped to a bed. The ending of "Mum and Dad" is a very strong one, and also a very effective one. Thus putting a nice period at the end of occured events.

"Mum and Dad" in many ways is nothing new, but it has excellent performances, and does just enough things differently, while crafting a horrifying scenario which embodies the word and term "horror". Thus making it a good horror film and a good viewing experience.

Positives:Good performances, a high level of horror, terror, and gross out factor. A fantastic finale.

Negatives:The overall story is mostly unoriginal as it mirrors alot of other rural terror/semi-suburban terror films.

Overall:Three out of four stars.





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