By: John Duarte
When you think of home invasion movies, you expect intense action, interesting bad guys, and good dialogue throughout the movie.
Unfortunately, Sam Farmer’s CRY FOR THE BAD MAN isn’t that movie. This film stars Camille Keaton from the original I Spit on Your Grave as Marsha Kane, a widowed woman who faces a grisly confrontation with her would-be extortionists.
A trio of brothers go up to her house to harass her to sell it to their local hero dad. When she refuses to sign the contract, they give her until the next night to sign, or they’ll be hell to pay. She tries to go to the local police for help, but they just ignore her. So, of course, it’s up to her to fight for her own house - and she comes packing.
CRY FOR THE BAD MAN had the potential to be a fun, 70-minute ride, but the script, written by Sam Farmer, is unfortunately nothing original. There are moments of quasi-intensity, but mainly you're just watching the intruders trying to hide from our main protagonist. Of the three brothers taunting Marsha, oldest brother Wayne (Scott Peeler) has an over-the-top southern accent that’s way too cartoonish for a movie that’s supposed to be taken seriously. To top it off, the other two brothers oddly don’t have southern accents, even though the movie takes place in a Louisiana town.
Keaton is no stranger to the one-woman army game, and I think she does a fine job of blowing people away. With any good home invasion movie, you have to have some blood and gore. If I can say at least one decent thing about this movie, it's not hurting for gore. There are at least one or two good gags.
The worst thing about CRY FOR THE BAD MAN is definitely the three brothers. They all behave as if they are in different [bad] home invasion movies. Plus, their dialogue is so bland, that I couldn’t be bothered to care about their relationship. As far as I'm concerned, they were just three bad guys waiting to get their comeuppance.
I wish I could tell you more about CRY FOR THE BAD MAN, but there’s not much else to say. It's pretty short - only around 70 minutes long. A veteran horror actress in the lead and some decent gore can't help save this movie from being mediocre. It’s not the worst home invasion movie you’ll see, but I’ll just say, rent this movie at your own risk.