10 MORE Horror Movies That Actually Benefitted From Bad Acting

A key player in not just the revitalisation of Nicolas Cage as a dependable talent, but in the actor's newfound success story as an indie horror star, Brian Taylor's Mom and Dad cracked screens in early 2018. The film takes the domestic drama and turns it on its head, with Cage starring opposite Selma Blair as two parents who have been infected by a mysterious mass hysteria that turns adults against their offspring in the bloodiest of fashions.

From the outset, there is a masterfully conceived mounting sense of madness and crazed violence, and Cage plays things straight - until he doesn't. Flipping the switch somewhere just beyond Mom and Dad's midpoint, the Vampire's Kiss actor goes into full Rage Cage mode. Habitually OTT, his performance serves as the core from which every other element in the film spins off, allowing everyone to go that bit bigger than they normally would and managing to bring the entire production onto his level.

The fact that he is all but chewing the scenery is very much part of the package, and several scenes whose content threatens to tip the picture into truly bleak territory - running a hose from the gas line, ala Midsommar, into the basement in an attempt to poison and asphyxiate the kids, for example - are tethered by the comedy. It is difficult to say whether Taylor meant for Mom and Dad to turn out this way, but it's all the better for it.