Thursday Movie Picks - Bad Parents

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We try, guys. We really try. Mrs. Dell and I have three kids. Two of them are (barely) adults, at least in the eyes of the law. You know how it is. They'll always be our babies. We did our best. Hopefully, they will all become prosperous and will take care of us in our old age without complaining about it.

If you wonder what I'm going on about, it's that parenting, or more specifically bad parenting, is this week's topic for Thursday Movie Picks hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. There are a lot of bad movie parents out there. That's why I chose it. Oh, I didn't tell you? I suggested this topic. Let's talk about some bad parents.

Flowers in the Attic

(1987)

Deserving of a visit from Social Services: Corrine (Mother) and Olivia (Grandmother).

Already dead, but still deserving: Christopher (Father).
Lots of families are thrown into disarray when dad dies. 99.9% of them, I'm guessing, don't have as much trouble as this one. Mother moves herself and her four kids into the mansion of her own parents. Sounds good, right? You'd be wrong. Dead wrong. The kids, two of them teens, are locked together in one bedroom (with access to the attic), are barely fed, and have to deal with all sorts of abuse at the hands of their grandmother. Mom slowly stops going to visit them in the room and his herself being abused by her mother. As for the deceased dad, I won't spoil it, but he's the worst person of them all.

Precious

(2009)

Deserving of a visit from Social Services: Mary (mom)

In this movie, there actually is a visit from Social Services. While the abuse in my previous entry was varied, in Precious, it's straight-up ass-whupins with an extremely healthy serving of verbal assault. It's all doled out by Mary, a single mom who seems to nothing more than beat the ever-loving hell out of her daughter, Precious. Mo'Nique took home a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role and every bit of it was deserved. The woman was simply terrifying. (My full review)

Killer Joe

(2012)

Deserving of a visit from Social Services: Ansel (dad), Charla (step-mom) and to a lesser degree, Adele (mom).

After losing the drugs he was supposed to sell, Chris needed his hidden away cash. He finds out that his mom knew where it was, took it, and used to fix her car. Between a rock and a hard place, Chris hatches a plan to kill mom to get the money from her life insurance policy. The kicker is that his teenage sister is the beneficiary. With me, so far? Okay, cool. Let's bring in the bad parenting, aside from mom, that is. Chris tells his dad about his plan, and along with his step-mom, they all go along with it. The REALLY bad parenting? When this group of idiots can't come up with enough cash to pay the hitman they've hired up front. No problem, he's taken a shine to the sister and offers to do the job if he can have her as a retainer. They agree. Please see this movie to see how crazy it can get. I promise you'll never look at fried chicken the same again. (My full review)

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