Going home for the holidays is cool because you get to spend time with your family and the friends you may not see on a regular basis. There’s usually free food, and you can crash on the couch in sweatpants and a raggedy old t-shirt while renting all the On-Demand movies and drinking all the wine for days at a time. But there’s also the terrible situations that are nearly impossible to avoid: the commute home, the mass of superficial idiots from your high school, the old-fashioned relatives who simply cannot grasp the fact that you’re still single and you still don’t know what you want to do with your life. So yeah, going home can end up feeling more like an anxiety-inducing burden than a vacation from everyday life. When your family or your home situation makes you want to scream and pull your hair out, check out this list of great films featuring terrible families, and remember — things could always be worse.
1. Dogtooth (2009)
Dogtooth is one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen — it embraces the horror/comedy overlap in a way that’s insane, surreal and oddly beautiful, as it tells the story of some batshit crazy parents who try to “protect” their kids from the real world by setting up a twisted, make-believe universe within the confines of their home. Having no interaction with the world beyond the family’s fenced-in yard, life gets increasingly nightmarish for everyone.
2. Flowers In The Attic (1987)
The poor Dollangangers had the worst experiences as kids. [Spoiler alert for anyone who wasn’t traumatized/fascinated by this mess as a kid] After losing their dad , they find out that their parents were related by blood. Then they’re forced to live in their abusive grandmother’s nasty attic while their mom turns into a greedy snob and tries to get rid of them by way of arsenic-laced sweets.
3. Mum & Dad (2008)
Here, a young, Polish immigrant befriends a couple of her co-workers, and inadvertently ends up kidnapped and held captive by her new work-buddies and their “Mum & Dad.” Her new, uh, family is straight-up repulsive — they lie, steal, torture, murder, dismember, inject their prisoners (and each other) with questionable pharmaceuticals, and eat their victims. They also watch porn at the breakfast table, which is awkward.
4. The Loved Ones (2009)
When I first came across this film, I read it was a cross between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Sixteen Candles, and that ended up serving as a fairly accurate assessment. The relationship between the main character and her father is bizarre and gag-inducing, but it makes for an oddly entertaining tale. Also, the super graphic, torture stuff is leveled with dark humor and cheesy music, so it’s kind of a fun take on the whole “torture porn” sub-genre.
5. Eraserhead (1977)
There is basically a 0% chance that your Thanksgiving dinner will be as traumatic as Eraserhead’s dinner scene.
6. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is one of those movies that makes you feel like you need to take a hot shower immediately after it ends. Asia Argento stars in and directs this seriously depressing story about the worst mom ever, along with some other truly appalling characters. It features meth labs, religious cults, and Marilyn Manson as one of Argento’s many lovers. He ends up being seduced by her young son — played by [one of] the twins from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody — if that’s any indication of how messed up the scenarios in this film are.
7. Maps To The Stars (2014)
Cronenberg’s latest satirical work focuses on not one but two totally dysfunctional families. Damaged by the repercussions of child stardom, incest, drugs, and a shameless quest for fame, everybody in this film kind of represents what’s wrong with Hollywood and celebrity culture, and also how this kind of disillusionment can completely warp familial relationships.
8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
WORST FAMILY EVER.
Article by Nicole Woszcyzna. Follow her on Twitter @nicolewosz
