The trailer forThe Parentingsees a new member of theFriendscastbattling a haunted house after the cancellation of Courteney Cox’s Starz horror-comedy seriesShining Vale. The upcoming horror-comedy movie, which will be a Max exclusive, follows a couple - Rohan (Nick Dodani) and Josh (Brandon Flynn) - who invite their parents to a secluded mansion so they can all meet, only to learn that the house is haunted by a demonic presence. The star-studded cast of the movie also includes Lisa Kudrow, Dean Norris, Parker Posey, Edie Falco, and Brian Cox.
Maxhas nowshared the official trailer forThe Parenting.After introducing the premise of the movie, the trailer doubles down on comic moments of watching the cast ping-pong off of one another. These include an extended scene where Cox’s character Gerald drops his towel, a sequence where the family fights what appears to be a demonically possessed dog, and a line of dialogue that highlights the metaphor of the story, comparing spending time with one’s extended family to full-on horror. Watch the trailer below:
What This Means For The Parenting
Its Shining Vale Connections Are Uncanny
AlthoughShining Valeseason 3has not come to fruition, in some waysThe Parentingacts as a continuation of the series. In addition to being another haunted house horror-comedy starring an alumna from the iconic, long-running sitcomFriends, there are quite a few other parallels. This includes using haunted house tropes as metaphors to exacerbate pre-existing dysfunctional family dynamics, focusing on comedy more than horror, and even featuring a reference to the classic Stephen King ghost storyThe Shiningin the title.
Shining Valestarred Courteney Cox as an author whose attempt to repair her marriage sees her family moving into a new house, where she is unsure if she is being haunted or if her depression is manifesting in unusual ways.
However, there arequite a few ways thatThe Parentingsets itself apart fromShining Vale. This includes the fact that Lisa Kudrow (who has most recently been seen inNetflix’sNo Good Deed) is not the lead character of the movie. Rohan and Josh are the leads and the central cogs that connect the disparate group of characters, allowing for a more diffuse style of storytelling with a slightly wider focus. Additionally, the Starz series was more overtly dramatic than the Max movie, which seems to have broad comedy as its primary goal, tonally.
Our Take On The Parenting Trailer
Max Could Benefit From The Projects' Similarities
In addition to general tonal differences, the upcoming movie also adds a considerable amount of romantic comedy tropes to the mixture of genres that was already present in the cancelled show. However, in spite of the ways that the projects diverge,The Parentingcould still be a solid follow-up to a binge of the two seasons ofShining Vale. This may be one reason the movie is being released when it is, asMax acquired the Courteney Cox series after it was cancelled and removed by Starz, so it has been available as part of their library since January 1.
