Mom and Dad

Brian Taylor is best known for his directing partnership with Mark Neveldine on kinetic tosh like the Crank films and the Nicolas Cage ham sandwich that is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Taylor goes solo here and hooks up with Cage in a slick, pitch-black horror satire that sees midlife crisis turn into midlife mania when parents inexplicably feel compelled to slay their offspring with anything to hand (plastic bag, tenderiser, coat hanger). As brooding dad Brent Ryan, Cage harnesses the ham to hilarious effect; knowingly double bluffing the audience into thinking he's about to go full berserker and then pulling back. He's ably assisted by Selma Blair as his wife, and their musings on life post-parenthood is a resonant one ("Stay single or live long enough to become clichéd"). Tense and unnerving rather than sloshing in gore, especially in the John Carpenter-like climax in which the Ryan kids try to escape from their home, Taylor's finest film yet delivers real chills - the scene with parents swarming outside school to slaughter their kids, but especially the nerve-frazzling sequence in a hospital maternity ward.