Happy Father’s Day: 5 Of The Worst Movie Dads

Rodney Dangerfield — “Natural Born Killers” (1994)
In Oliver Stone’s words, Ed Wilson (Rodney Dangerfield) is “the father from hell.” The character’s screen-time is less than five minutes, but it’s long enough to give us a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, still lingering nearly 20 years later. An emotionally, physically and sexually abusive father, Ed Wilson is a real monster, and considering his serial killer offspring, Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis), that’s really saying something. The horror of Ed Wilson’s parenting is driven home by Stone’s choices to dub the vignette involving the Wilson family “I Love Mallory” and to set it to a sitcom laugh-track. This juxtaposition (spliced with some black-and-white close-ups) makes Ed Wilson threatening his wife (Edie McClurg) all the more off-putting and grabbing Mallory’s ass all the more gruesome. No wonder Mallory ran off with Mickey (Woody Harrelson), albeit to go on a killing spree, but at least she got out of her father’s greasy clutches. For all of Mallory’s faults and crimes, we can look back and see the roots in a depraved father and neglectful mother, or as Dangerfield said in a 1994 L.A. Times interview, “not every parent is as bad as me in the movie but in general, parents can hurt their kids without even knowing it.” Fun sidenote, Dangerfield also revealed that he wrote: “all the filthy stuff” (e.g. “I’ll show her a little tenderness after I eat. When I get up there, she won’t see my face for an hour.”). Now, remember that the next time you watch “Caddyshack,” “Back To School,” or “Ladybugs” (shiver). So to show how grateful you are that your father hasn’t driven you to be a mass-murderer, nix the tie and get him that Ernest Hemingway audiobook set he’s been hinting at since you disappointed him for Christmas.

Dylan Baker — “Happiness” (1998)
“Divisive” is as good a word as any when talking about Todd Solondz‘s multi-stranded ensemble picture. “Happiness” won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes, but Sundance refused to show it. Quentin Crisp dismissed it as “quite absurd,” but Roger Ebert named it his number five film of the year. The film is notable for many reasons; the critical and commercial high point of Solondz’s career, bringing Phillip Seymour Hoffman to wider attention (along with “Magnolia,” which he made directly afterwards) and as being one of the last truly daring movies of the Indie new wave of the 1990s, but it is one story that really sticks in the mind. Dylan Baker plays a suburban father who develops an obsession with a classmate of his son. When Johnny comes for a sleepover, Bill drugs Johnny and then sodomizes him while he is unconscious. Later he learns of another boy whose parents have left him home alone and drives over to rape him too, expressing no remorse for his actions. As it unfolds, seemingly out of nowhere, it’s utterly, utterly horrifying and it’s hard to believe that the movie you were just enjoying has taken such a sickening turn. One of the most blood-chilling aspects is the way Dylan Baker anchors the performance so resolutely in a kind of suburban, middle-management, sad-sack normalcy, so much so that many fans have never forgotten it, as the actor himself has acknowledged in subsequent interviews. There is no doubt that this Dad is a monster of the most horrendous kind but perhaps what is most troubling about him is the fact that this is not a man who stands out from the crowd, this is a guy who looks and sounds like your Dad’s friends or your work colleagues, and therefore you’d never see him coming.

Jack Nicholson — “The Shining” (1980)
Fancy a jaunt to the countryside with Dad? Oh, and you have the whole hotel to yourself? Nifty. What could possibly go wrong? An alcoholic with anger issues, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) was never going to win father of the year, especially after he somewhat-inadvertently broke his son Danny’s arm. But at least at the start of “The Shining,” Jack is trying to rehabilitate himself by giving up drinking, accepting a caretaker position at an empty, out-of-season resort, and tackling that book that he’s always wanted to write, all without outside distractions. Unfortunately, Jack didn’t account for the inside influences at the Overlook Hotel and its otherworldly inhabitants in particular. After a little too much time to himself, Jack take up drinking again, gets nowhere with that novel (“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”), and goes on an attempted killing spree with an axe (apparently the croquet mallet in Stephen King’s original novel wasn’t threatening enough). After chasing down his wife (Shelley Duvall), he stumbles on his son (Danny Lloyd), who screams, as any kid in his right mind would do at seeing a crazed ax-wielding Jack Nicholson. Rather than snapping out of it at the sight of his terrified son, Jack chases him down too, ax and all, only to be thwarted by getting stuck in the outdoor maze and freezing to death. Breaking his son’s arm, dragging his family to nowhere Colorado, trying to kill said family with an ax – yeah, he’s earned his place on this list, demons and all. In regards to your own Father’s Day — all emails and no phone calls make Dad a disappointed father.