October 28: The Parenting

[kinetic_elaboration]

Watched The Parenting tonight, for something a little different among my other horror watching. I was sort of skeptical at first but… it grew on me.

Some random observations:

• Horror-comedy is really hard and I think this one did a pretty good job of balancing the two. I say that even though a lot of the humor wasn’t really my type and I’ve certainly seen way scarier movies. But there were some jokes I liked (“Your father doesn’t like to fly. He would never just fly around. And try to kill me!”) and some spooky moments/jump scares that were really effective (like the hand coming out from under the table).
• The movie sort of reminds me of that gay holiday romcom from a few years ago with Aubrey Plaza looking fine as hell–sort of a similar weight to it, but this is the horror version instead of the Christmas version.
• Also one of those movies that really relies on its cast, I think. I mean as I said, the plot is fine and has its moments but I think at the end of the day I’ll feel like it was worth watching for Edie Falco and Lisa Kudrow just stealing scenes all over the place.
• My biggest complaint is that the main couple… seem to lack a lot of chemistry, tbh. I mean obviously the point is that they’re experiencing problems and conflict but even at the beginning, when we’re supposed to be establishing their dynamic, they just felt… unbelievable. And I want to believe! I love a queer love story! But I don’t get what these two people like about each other.
• I realize this is a weird thing to say, given some of the nuttier plot points (demon dog?), but in the beginning especially, I felt like this is probably the most realistic depiction of what a demon haunting would actually look like. Everyone assuming the mysterious banging was some other couple having sex? The person who was grabbed by the mysterious hand finding the grossest and most awkward way of defining the sensation and then everyone else focuses on the description and not on the weird event? Yeah, seems pretty reasonable.
• Also I liked the hiding the demon-summoning spell in the wifi password trick lol. The number of people that would work on.
• The ending was very sweet and I thought it struck a good chord. So, I leave satisfied. And now I reallllly need to sleep.