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As adults, siblings Annie and Baxter Fang are played by Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman, respectively. Annie is a famous actress who has recently become a tabloid sensation after going topless in her latest film role, while Baxter is a struggling writer and journalist who still hasn’t found great success. Their parents, Caleb and Camille Fang, played in their older form by Christopher Walken and Maryann Plunkett, are famous for being public performance artists who once used Annie and Baxter (whom they refer to as Child ‘A’ and Child ‘B’) to do pranks out in public in order to elicit a reaction from the crowds around that would be filmed with a camera as part of their art to show a certain truth about humanity by provoking it through the falsehood of their performance.
As they grow older, the Fang children pull away from their exploitative parents, while also continuing to be influenced by their philosophies on life and art, though they continue to be challenged trying to fit in with so-called ‘normal’ society, unable to form permanent relationships and resorting to a bit of self-medication to ease their persistent anxiety. The family reunites after Baxter is hospitalized during a journalistic piece he is writing that has him talking to men who enjoy shooting off spud guns (guess who gets shot with one?), though the relationships are now strained and most are generally unhappy with their current situations in life. Annie and Baxter additionally connect later after they receive notice that their parents may be the latest victims in a string of killings while on the road in North Carolina, with blood found in their abandoned vehicle, but no bodies in sight. But are they truly dead, or is this yet another one of the infamous Fang family pranks meant to unite the once close family into another series of adventures?
