Dark cannibal comedy Parents hits Blu-ray this week
Bob Balaban is known primarily as an actor, notable as everyone from the kid who blew Jon Voight in the porn theater in Midnight Cowboy to the head of NBC in TV’s Seinfeld to Enid’s old man in Ghost World.
These are but a few of his dozens of credits.
But Balaban is also a fairly steady gigging director, toiling primarily in TV. His first directorial credit was helming the pilot for the George A.Romero blessed anthology series Tales From the Darkside but he did make a pair of genre-friendly feature films in 1994’s silly and bloody My Boyfriend’s Back and, again, 1989’s Parents…
What a film!
Shot in Toronto, a production of the long-defunct and beloved Vestron Pictures, the movie casts Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt as picture-perfect 1950’s suburban parents whose 10 year old son (Bryan Madorsky) is almost completely at odds with the world he lives in. On top of his own growing pains and mistrust of the too-shimmering and secretive sheen enveloping his life, he begins to suspect that his meat-eating mum and dad are in fact, bloodthirsty cannibals, with dad carving up the dead and bringing home human flesh for the family to eat.
The film is allegorical, satirical, erotic, totally grim and totally hilarious. And bloody. And strange. And really, unlike any other film ever made, a look at a world off-balance and a movie that is fearless in its ambiguities and bold in its refusal to soften its hard, harsh distortion of a child’s-eye view of their parents as monsters.
Now that Lionsgate has revived Vestron, Parents is coming back in a limited-edition Blu-ray on January 31 with all-new special features, including an audio commentary with director Bob Balaban and producer Bonnie Palef and interviews with screenwriter Christopher Hawthorne and actress Mary Beth Hurt. This limited-edition Parents Blu-ray will be available for the suggested retail price of $34.97.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary with Director Bob Balaban and Producer Bonnie Palef
- Isolated Score Selections/Audio Interview with Composer Jonathan Elias
- Featurettes:
o “Leftovers to Be” with Screenwriter Christopher Hawthorne
o “Mother’s Day” with Actress Mary Beth Hurt
o “Inside Out” with Director of Photography Robin Vidgeon
o “Vintage Tastes” with Decorative Consultant Yolando Cuomo
- Theatrical Trailer
- Radio Spots
- Still Gallery
We have an exclusive clip from the “Vintage Tastes” featurette below. Have a look and order Parents from Amazon immediately!