MUM AND DAD

IF you thought you had seen it all before, wait until you meet Mum and Dad.

This is independent cinema at its finest - breaking every horror taboo in the book to create one unnerving 80min ride into the ultra perverse.

Lena is a young Polish immigrant who works as a night cleaner at Heathrow Airport.
When she misses the last bus home, she is offered shelter by two co-workers, Birdie and her mute brother, Elbie.

But a roof for the night comes at a cost - becoming the new member of Mum and Dad’s sadomasochistic and cannibalistic family.

Funded by Nottingham’s EM Media and Film London’s Microwave Scheme, first-time feature director Steven Sheil shot the entire film for under £100,000.

But do not be fooled by the budget, this is one unnerving and grossly perverse movie - Britain’s answer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but with tea and toast.

And although the movie aims to shock again and again with lashings of brutal torture and decapitated bodies, it’s the relationship between Mum and Dad, which is the most intriguing part of the film.

Mum (Dido Miles) and Dad (Perry Benson - the quiet, specky one in This is England), are perhaps two of the most deranged characters to ever embrace indie cinema.

In fact, the most perverse yet comic part of the film is the constant shift from ‘happy family’ to the macabre.

In one scene the family comfortably sit around the breakfast table eating toast, laughing and talking trivia oblivious to the unsettling fact hardcore pornography is playing on the TV. In another, Mum is interrupted while torturing Lena for a quick tea and chocolate biscuit break. Hilarious!

It might not be original but Mum and Dad sets a new precedent for the perverse dysfunctional family.

And once you’ve seen this, it will be hard to look at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the same light again.

Rating: * * * *