Macabre…ish Horror Review: Come To Daddy
Come To Daddy, 2019/ 1 hr 33 min
Norval (Elijah Wood) gets a letter from his dad who he hasn’t seen for at least 30 years. So he drops everything and travels to his dad’s house.
When he arrives, he doesn’t recognize the man (Stephen McHattie) at the door and the man doesn’t recognize him either. Norval has to convince him of who he is. And the man seems to finally recognize him and invites him in. The entire encounter is awkward and bizarre, then both tell each other tales that are quickly uncovered to be lies. Everything about this man’s presence, tone, passive aggression…everything says he doesn’t want Norval there but he never tells him that out right. And Norval dismisses it as him not being used to guests.
After dad gets drunk, he gets even weirder and pulls out a knife, intending to stab Norval. Instead he drops dead.
After Norval contacts the authorities and deals with the body, he starts hearing loud and disturbing noises from the vents. While looking through photo albums, that’s full of photos of him as a child and a man who is not the dead man. The man in the photos is his father. When Norval can’t take the scary sounds from the vents anymore, he starts searching for a door and finds one under the living room rug.
And inside is an injured man who’s obviously been tortured. It’s his real dad, Brian (Martin Donovan), who is thrilled to see he got his letter.
The man is chained up and he tells Norval that he needs to beat the man to death that comes in. That man is his former best friend, Jethro (Michael Smiley), and partner in crime that he double crossed. He double crossed all his partners and they are currently trying to torture the money out of him. But it’s gone.
Norval eventually frees his dad and has to kill another man, Dandy (Simon Chin), he finds upstairs on the toilet. Norval’s dad tells him he will have to kill all of them if they are ever to be safe. So Brian convinces Norval to get in the trunk of Jethro’s car and when he gets his opportunity to take it.
He warned his dad that he isn’t a murderer and based on his performance at the motel, where Jethro has a room, it’s true. He ends up getting choked out by a sex worker and impaled by Jethro. After thinking Norval was dead, Jethro jumps in his car and immediately crashes his car, shearing off the top of his head.
Norval finds the man walking down the middle of the street and Jethro confesses to him that he knows his mother. She was a prostitute and he and his dad were customers. After that story, he drops dead.
Norval returns to his dad who’s still where he left him on the beach.
This film was directed by Ant Timpson. This movie set the awkward tone very well. And it is a series of twists that I wouldn’t have seen coming coupled with a wild story and an odd cast of characters. There are a few moments of very graphic violence and gore. And it’s all brought together with casual banter and dark comedy.