Imagine if your parents randomly flipped out and came after you and your siblings with homicidal intent? Sounds like things couldn’t possibly get any worse, right? Okay, now imagine that your dad is Nicholas Cage.
This is the high concept premise of Brian Taylor’s (Crank, Gamer and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) Mom and Dad, in which a teenage girl and her little brother must survive 24 hours during which a mysterious and unexplained mass hysteria causes their parents (played by Nic Cage and Selma Blair) to turn into bloodthirsty monsters. The awesome first trailer was released just the other day, and now, we’ve got this gallery of hi-res stills that indicates that we’re definitely due for some prime Cage craziness – which is absolutely fine by me!
For all the high-priced fancy pants marketing campaigns that get thrown at films, it doesn’t take a huge amount to get my butt into a cinema seat, so seeing a madly gurning axe-wielding Cage in these stills has just guaranteed I’m going to be there on opening night. In fact, it’s looking as if Mom and Dad is going to be a classic slice of crazy Cage action, with Taylor explaining in interviews that Cage isn’t “over the top,” but rather that he “makes the top.”
For his own part, the actor has described the film as his “favorite movie he’s made in the past ten years,” and was apparently particularly pleased about a scene in which he dances the hokey cokey while carrying a sledgehammer. So there’s that, too.
Even better, we don’t have to wait too long until we get our hands on this. After a warm reception at the Toronto Film Festival last year, Mom and Dad is coming to theatres and VOD/Digital HD on January 19th. I’m making a note in my diary as we speak. After all, you just can’t beat a bit of Cage’s patented “mega-acting” to brighten up a dull January.
