Review of Mum & Dad (2008) by Patrick E — 07 Nov 2009

Mum and Dad is a brilliantly crafted low Budget Brit horror with some truly disturbing scenes, plenty of gore and a gritty realism that will leave you thinking how can people this depraved exist. A Polish girl is kidnapped by a family and forced to become one of them, the parents call themselves Mum and Dad and force the girl to do chores etc while submitting her to serious mental and physical torture.

It's a hard film to watch at times, some of the scenes are incredibly disturbing due to the intense realism of it all, but it's a highky entertaining horror film due to immense tension throughout and the brilliantly crafted and acted chracaters. Dad is truly sadistic character and one of the best horror characters in a long time. One moment he is seriously barbaric and the next he is a normal working class dad. There is the odd bit of dark comedy but mostly it's pure disturbing horror right up to the gruesome ending. The gore mght be too much for some but this definitely isn't a "torture porn" film, the gore is needed to drive the excellent narative forward.

Brilliantly acted, directed and scored, it makes you think about serial killers of the past such as Fred and Rosemary West as this is probably how they acted. An excellent horror film that I highly recommend.