Meeting your future spouse’s family is a tough proposition. This is especially true when they have a blood oath with a demon, were just laid off from their daytime talk show, or recently retired from a 30-year CIA career. Luckily, Hollywood is there to hyperbolize these fears in a super Be Reel category: “I’m Marrying Into What-Now?”
READ MORE: ‘Ready or Not’ Is an Entertaining If Unambitious Deadly Game of Hide and Seek
Starting with the punchy new horror-comedy “Ready or Not,”, we look at the “classic”—or so says Noah—2000 family comedy “Meet the Parents“ and the infamous Jane Fonda vehicle “Monster-in-Law.” As we unpack this trio of nightmarish families, we also look at the legacy of these domestic calamities and try to boil this subgenre down to the necessary ingredients: sympathetic protagonist at the mercy of fate, clueless spouse, parents doomed by their own moral code, and perhaps a soupcon of Griswold family mischief.
Enjoy a drag-out argument over “Meet the Parents” as Chance and Noah ask the urgent questions:
- Is there a more vulnerable moment than the first impression with a potential in-law?
- In this filmmaking era, just how powerful is the deep-rooted contempt for the rich in “Ready or Not'”?
- How does “Get Out” fit into (or maybe even shatter) this genre? What about “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?“
- What devil’s game did Jared Kushner have to play before marrying Ivanka Trump?
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