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The film begins with a young Polish woman named Lena (Olga Fedori) who fled her
country to start a new life in London, at night she works as a cleaner at the Heathrow
Airport. Lena quickly makes two new friends on her first night at work, her cleaning
partner Birdie (Ainsley Howard) and her adoptive mute brother Elbie (Toby Alexander).
Birdie who forgets her phone, hands Lena the stuff she pick pocketed hold while she
runs back up stairs to find her phone. Lena ends up missing the bus at the end of her
shift, Birdie who feels bad offers Lena to crash at there house (located at the end of
the runway) as her father works the nightshift and never is home. Once Lena steps
through the door, Elbie locks the door behind her and proceeds to his bedroom while
Birdie tells Lena to make herself at home before going up stairs to see her father.
Minutes later Lena walks into the lounge waiting for Birdie to come back, surprise-
surprise, Dad (Perry Benson) sneaks up behind her and clubs her in the back of the
head and quickly injects her with serum that puts her to sleep. Lena awakes in a dark
bare room, chained to a bed while hearing the sounds of a screaming moan, followed
by several loud thumping/cracking sounds from room beside her. In walks a man with
his singlet covered in blood stains who barges through the doorway huffing and puffing
holding a mallet dripping in blood, while a body curled up on the floor is twitching.
Next walks in a woman sits down beside the bed and whispers in a gentle calm voice
"I'm mum, he’s dad and you’re with us now. - [Lena begins to freak out] - If you know
what’s good for you, you'll settle down, the more you fight the more excited he gets..
we need to calm him down ok". Lena is offered to have a choice to be a good little
angel and do what she is told or become their new pet by the two twisted demented
parents, while there other two children Birdie and Elbie, who clearly have been
abducted/tortured/brainwashed due to constant and endless torture methods and
sickening sexual fantasies, both of them constantly get there kicks out of tormenting
Lena.
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Mum & Dad is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen full frame. Comparing the
retail version to the screener i was first sent to review, you can clearly see a huge
improvement in video quality. The print is clean with a solid detail and overall depth
as the colors appear accurate and contrast is strong.
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The audio is your standard English 2.0 Dolby Digital surround sound which comes
through nicely through the center channels and sounds very clean and crisp. Also with
the dialogue, the vocals sound clean and audible.
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In the DVD extra department Anchor Bay Entertainment have only included 3 trailers
which are Spread, Mum & Dad and Laid to Rest. It would of been nice to have listened
to a audio commentary or even a interview with director Steven Sheil and what
inspired him to create such a dark vile film.
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This gritty British film titled Mum & Dad would have to be one of the most sadistic
films to be released on DVD in 2009. As we all know family means the world to some
families and to others, depending on your upbringing and what happens behind closed
doors can either be embarrassing or a living nightmare. Mum & Dad is a film that
pushes the boundaries of all family-related horror films and will make you think twice
the next time you crash over at your friend’s parents’ house.
Over past 4 decades we have seen a good amount of films about deranged families
that rely on abducting and mutilating innocent backpackers, immigrants or runaways.
The most notorious psychopath family of them all would have to be the American
family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Well that’s until now, since British
filmmaker Steven Sheil wrote and directed a vile piece of cinema called Mum & Dad,
which is not only a disturbing film it actually makes you wonder, what could be going
on behind the closed doors of your neighbours home? Nothing is more scary than not
actually knowing the person/s who’re living beside you, the person who you chat to
every morning when fetching the newspaper or mail, the person who comes knocking
at your door or the person you invite into your house to fix something that has broken
as you often left to wonder that you might have just let into your house a serial killer,
rapist or perhaps a paedophile. Mum & Dad reaches deep into all the fears that a adult
wouldn’t think about on a day to day bases, which is your child being abducted and
having to ordeal long lengths of pain over a great length of time.
Mum & Dad is a sleazy slice of British torture-porn, as actor Perry Benson and actress
Dido Miles, takes on the role of a everyday couple who in the eyes of a child look up
to as role models and push the boundaries by turning there characters into vicious,
sinister and blood-thirsty psychopaths. One scene in particular that will warp your mind
is when Benson (playing the role of Dad) is seen wanking into a piece of human flesh
before laying down the house rules. While Miles (Mom) who tremendously enjoys
torturing her little angels with knitting needles and carving angel wing designs into
their backs with razor blades. While having to undergo being molested, forced to have
sex (which you don’t actually see) by the two parents, and if they don’t do there
chores, then Dad will put your head on the chopping board and smash it in with a meat
mallet.
When it comes to the gore factor, well it’s moderately-high for a R rated film. A lot of
the scenes in this film are more focused on torturing more than actual gore. As you
witness Mom jamming knitting needles though the stomaches of teenagers, slicing up
there backs, inner thighs and arms, while Dad prefers to beat to death his so called
”kids” with a meat mallet and jerk off with the severed limbs and chunks of meat.
Steven Sheil’s Mum & Dad is one of those films that you can re-watch over and over
again and most importantly not get bored with the film. As you all know there’s
nothing worse when you dish out your hard earned cash for a film that you only will
watch once as the disc gathers dust in your DVD collection of crap. Mum & Dad is not
yet available to own on DVD, but as of the 18th of November you will be able to rent
this bad boy from your local DVD store. So make sure you reserve your copy today so
you don’t have to wait a minute longer.
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