On March 13, 2025, The Parenting, a new horror comedy directed by Craig Johnson, premiered on Max. The film immediately started getting slammed by critics. It currently has a 48% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 79% audience score. What are critics saying is wrong with The Parenting, and what is responsible for this reaction disparity?
For one, critics said that
the material was not strong enough for The Parenting’s stellar cast
, which includes several legends from HBO properties like Brian Cox (Succession), Edie Falco (The Sopranos), and Parker Posey (The White Lotus), and various other stars like Lisa Kudrow (Friends) and Dean Norris (Breaking Bad). The other main critique of The Parenting currently in circulation is that it’s not actually scary enough to call itself a horror movie.
Well, if history is any indicator, genre can be a prison, and some of the most beloved, boundary-pushing movies have blurred the lines.
If you remove any expectation that The Parenting will be blood-curdling,
you might just be possessed to find it as fun and unique as the majority of viewers.
The Parenting
2
/5
- Release Date
-
March 13, 2025
- Runtime
-
94 Minutes
- Director
-
Craig Johnson
- Writers
-
Kent Sublette
- Producers
-
Chris Bender, Richard Brener, Jake Weiner, Jared Ian Goldman
What Is ‘The Parenting’ About?
Rohan (Nik Dodani) and Josh (Brandon Flynn),
a young couple, are at the “meet the parents” stage.
Wanting everything to be absolutely perfect, they rent a country house for a weekend away, so the two families can meet in a controlled environment. Rohan’s adoptive parents are cold and distant, while Josh’s parents are quirky and overbearing. If that was not enough material for a pressure-cooker of a weekend,
the house they have rented also happens to be deeply haunted
by a 400-year-old angry entity. What ensues is a pretty classic, darkly hilarious romp where the two families have to band together to defeat the evil forces trying to murder and trap them in the house forever.
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‘The Parenting’ Has Something for Everyone (Except Scares, I Guess)
Okay, so I contend The Parenting is probably not some brilliant, genre-transcending classic in the making. It is not going to become Citizen Kane, and
it likely is not even going to get the cult classic
treatment down the line. However, The Parenting is genuinely funny. It is certainly at least worth watching for that reason. I laughed out loud multiple times, which I was not necessarily expecting to happen considering all the bad press it has gotten so far. Usually, when a comedy is receiving middle-of-the-road reviews, I assume it is going to phone in the jokes. The Parenting, especially at the beginning, is quite original.
Parker Posey, particularly, got me a few times
with some memorable one-liners.
All the while, The Parenting also happens to be a
rather endearing queer romance.
Whereas a lot of the time, queer love stories feel like they are hitting you over the head with trauma or patting themselves on the back, The Parenting is just an unapologetically stupid movie about two men in love. For those looking for a deeper meaning, there is a lot of evidence that suggests that the demons/ghosts in the movie might serve as some sort of allegory for homophobia and generational trauma (but I personally do not think it was that deep).
The mistake is expecting The Parenting to be Hereditary
just because it has ghosts in it (so does The Muppets Haunted Mansion, but no one is upset that that was not scary enough). It’s exciting to see a frivolous, sweet, formulaic movie like this focus on a queer couple and stars so many A-List actors, all while their queerness is not the predominant focus of the script.
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The only conclusion I can draw is that the issue really is about The Parenting not being scary enough. It is entertaining from start to finish, witty, heartwarming, and again, stars a lot of seasoned actors at the top of their games. Knocking a movie like The Parenting for not being scary kind of feels like
getting upset that Scary Movie does not have enough jumpscares.
Sometimes, movies can just be fun. There are so many examples of spooky yet silly films in our zeitgeist, so it is a little confusing why this one was so avidly picked on for being tame when
it never seemed like it was setting out to be The Terrifier.
Whether this was an instance of mismarketing or simply critics ganging up on The Parenting is unclear, but rest assured it is a delightful hour-and-a-half regardless.
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