Dr. Carter Nix (John Lithgow) is a respected child psychologist, but he’s as loony as a coot. He’s suffering from multiple personality disorder, where his personalities include the vile criminal Cain, the timid little 7-year old boy Josh, and a middle-aged nanny called Margo who is very protective of the others. Together with “Cain“ he kills young mothers to kidnap their children for experiments performed by Carter’s father, who was also a child psychologist but lost his license. Oh, and we also learn that Carter’s father has been dead for five years. So who are performing the experiments? Hm.
At the same time we also have Carter’s wife, Jenny, who becomes concerned when she notices that her husband starts to study their daughter obsessively, like she’s some subject to be researched. At the same time as Jenny becomes increasingly suspicious of Carter being off his rockers, she for some reason decides that having an affair with her ex-boyfriend Jack is a splendid idea. This goes just like you expect it to: Carter notices them, and becomes even more unhinged.
Plot already sounds a little convoluted? Well, just you wait, because this was not all, as the plot thickens and entangles even more when the police start finding corpses. They contact Dr. Lynn Waldheim who co-wrote a book with Carter’s father, called Raising Cain. She knows all about that man’s fucked up childhood, based on her sessions with him. Like father like son, as the old saying goes, and Carter then becomes a suspect for the killings.
Raising Cain is a psychological horror thriller from 1992, written and directed by Brian De Palma who is well known for Carrie (1976) and the first Mission Impossible movie. And here’s what gave De Palma some of the inspiration for the this movie: he once had a relationship to a married woman, and while watching her sleep he toyed around with the idea of what could possibly happen if he didn’t wake her in time for her to return to her husband (I hope her husband did find out, though). Which is why the affair-thing played a much more central role in this film than it needed to, because yeah, this movie is a little all over the place which sometimes even makes it a little hilarious. There could have been a rather straight-forward plot here, but…that’s certainly not what we get.
One of the best parts of the movie is John Lithgow who does a great job on portraying the unhinged psychologist Carter with his multiple personalities. There is never a mystery regarding how insane Carter is, we get a very clear example of that already during the first few minutes of the movie. As far as the rest of the characters go, there’s honestly a bit to be desired. Jenny and Jack’s chemistry is as limp-dicked as it comes, and it is really hard to buy into these characters at all. And to be honest, Jenny doesn’t exactly come off as one to root for, either. With the movie being told for the most part from the deranged husband’s point of view, much of the story feels dreamlike at times and where it’s not always easy to discern what’s just a part of Carter’s warped psyche or what’s actually real. And it keeps going in one weird direction after another.
Raising Cain is a somewhat befuddling experience at times, but still quite entertaining, very much thanks for Lithgow’s performance. If you want to watch a little oddball of a 90’s thriller, give this one a watch!
Writer and director: Brian De Palma
Country & year: USA, 1992
Actors: John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Steven Bauer, Frances Sternhagen, Gregg Henry, Tom Bower, Mel Harris, Teri Austin, Gabrielle Carteris, Barton Heyman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105217/
