Come to Daddy

Elijah Wood is a rare breed of actor who, along with actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Robert Pattinson, has made so much money so early on in their career, that they have the luxury to start in batshit crazy films just for fun. "Come to Daddy" is one of those films.

The premise is simple. Elijah Wood plays a thirty-something loser who gets a letter out of the blue from his estranged father, asking him to come visit him in his home in the middle of the woods. The set up is ripe for scares, but "Come To Daddy" knows exactly where you think it's going, and takes the hardest left turns possible to varying degrees of success. 

I won't spoil these aforementioned turns, because half of the fun is seeing just how crazy this movie can get, but needless to say it is a movie that has a finger on the pulse of the audience and uses that to take the story to its most uncomfortable. This devotion to shock and subversion definitely comes at the cost of the story's coherence and logic, but these are questions that won't be raised until after the credits begin to roll. Even among the most egregious of story choices, there are genuinely clever sequences and set ups that can only work in a movie this insane. 

"Come to Daddy" is by no means a masterpiece, but it's a great film to just jump into with no prior knowledge. It's a throwback to the slasher/grindhouse films of yesteryear, that will shock and disgust you in the ways you are least expecting. I am just thankful there are actors like Elijah Wood out there today that are doing their damnedest to make sure these kinds of experiences don't die out.