Come to Daddy

My favorite horror offering of the year so far. It’s smart, uncompromising, inventive and just downright hilarious.

No matter its oddball turns, Kiwi director Ant Timpson’s wild, unpredictable debut manages to deliver a gory hilarious father-son reunion saga with a surprising degree of confidence in the silly-strange nature of the material.

A film that keeps changing direction so often that it's almost a miracle the filmmakers don't give us tonal and narrative whiplash.

The best movie twists — like the ones in “Psycho,” “The Crying Game” and “Parasite” — aren’t just unexpected, but also change the direction and meaning of the story. Director Ant Timpson’s blackly comic thriller Come to Daddy isn’t in the same elite class as those films, but it does deliver a good, sick twist; and sometimes that’s enough.

A gonzo, gory and goofball B-movie about fathers, sons and killing or being killed.

Unfortunately, the movie is far more effective in its first half than its second, which degenerates into cheap shocks, absurd plot contrivances and vulgarism for its own sake (including an excrement-covered pen). It's a shame, because the opening section proves deliciously unsettling, thanks to the screenplay that keeps you off-balance and the terrific performances.

Vulgar, contrived and incomprehensible.

Omgggggggggggggg sooooooooo gooooooooooooooddgggggg Mmmmggggggggggggggggggg

Elijah Wood plays a trendy young man who gets an apologetic letter from his estranged dad, which sparks a trip to a remote cabin so they can reconnect. It's not clear from the outset where this narrative is headed. It appears to be a drama with packed emotional potential, but about half way thru it turns into something very different. I don't want to spoil it, but it becomes dark and violent (think Cohen Brothers without the humor). Despite some questionable **** in the logic and no real suspense, this film manages to be a somewhat unique little venture.

It tries to cover more than what it can propose and towards the ending it begins to decompose in an ugly way because it sacrifices all the substance for shock value but I admit that I found it more interesting and entertaining than I expected and by themselves those are already pretty good merits.

I wanted to give this movie a higher score as a lot of the individual parts that make up the film are great. The problem is these elements never real come together and congeal as a whole. While it didn’t seem like a surface level plot with just skin deep points of interest, it was a little disjunct in the way the story unfolds. There is almost no character development, but we have a good sense of the few people we meet. I wouldn’t say it jumps the shark at all, but it’s twits, for the most part, are laid out at your feet as dialogue. Because of this it never quite reaches the heights of what I think is a potentially great premise. It has all the trimmings of a quality film with great acting, production etc. It’s strange however, that with those elements on board I think it’s run time is a little short. It could have stayed a little longer so they could explore a few more depths of the characters and created a better arc overall for the narrative, or idea, that is at the heart of this story. With all that said I would still recommend it as it sets an awkward tone that I’ve rarely seen in films. For someone who watches a lot of movies that, was nice.

(Mauro Lanari) After almost thirty years, is "Reservoir Dogs" still copied? Originality and creativity blocked at the pulp era.