PARENTS

In 1958, the Laemle family—father Nick, mother Lily, and their 10-year-old son Michael—move from Massachusetts to a Californian suburban neighborhood. As young boy Michael is very socially awkward and also has an overly-active imagination, he has trouble making friends at school. He is also prone to strange and disturbing dreams, such as dreaming that he has jumped into bed, only for it to collapse into a pool of blood.

Emotionally distraught from the move and the dreams, Michael is traumatized after accidentally stumbling upon his parents having sex in the living room, which he envisions as a blood-soaked affair in which they appear to be biting one another. He is further disturbed after watching his father cutting into a corpse in the Division of Human Testing at Toxico, where Nick is developing an Agent Orange–style chemical defoliant for use in jungles. Michael finds some consolation in Sheila, a classmate whose own parents, acquaintances of Nick and Lily, are concealing a dysfunctional marriage.

As time progresses, Michael begins to suspect that his parents are cannibals, after he seemingly discovers dismembered body parts hanging on a meat hook in the basement. Michael is convinced that what he has seen is true, much to the chagrin of his school guidance counselor, Millie Dew, who assumes Michael's claim to be a fantasy.

One afternoon, Millie goes home with Michael in order to convince him that he is imagining everything, only for the two of them to find a corpse in the basement. Michael flees to his bedroom while Millie is forced into a pantry and attacked by an unseen assailant with a butcher knife, before being bludgeoned with a golf club. When Nick and Lily arrive home, Michael attacks his father. Later that evening, Nick tries to feed Michael human meat from Millie's corpse, assuring him that he will develop a taste for it like his mother did. Lily smiles in agreement, but Michael fights back and manages to stab his father in the shoulder. In a rage, Nick tries to kill Michael, but Lily intervenes and stabs Nick in the chest before he turns the knife on her, fatally wounding her.

Michael is chased through the house by his injured father, who accidentally runs into a gas line due to his injuries. Cornering Michael in the basement, Nick breaks the gas line and then runs into a shelf of wine bottles, which he pulls down onto himself, presumably pinning him. As gas fills the room, Michael has barely enough time to escape before the gas ignites and blows up the house.

Some time later, Michael has been placed under the care of his paternal grandparents. After putting him to bed, Michael's grandparents leave him a midnight snack of a suspicious-looking meat sandwich, implying that his father's cannibalism was a learned behavior.

Michael’s suspicions are confirmed in a violent confrontation that results in the deaths of both parents and the destruction of the family home. Michael is placed with his grandparents, but a final gesture suggests the cycle of cannibalism may continue.

The ending reveals that Michael’s fears were well-founded, culminating in a deadly family showdown and an explosive escape. The closing scene, with Michael’s grandparents offering a suspicious sandwich, implies that the disturbing family secret may be generational, casting a satirical shadow over the pursuit of suburban normalcy.