With the recent successes of the likes of The Witch, A Quiet Place, Get Out and It Comes at Night, more and more people have become interested in horror movies. However, there’s still a pretentious sniffiness towards genre cinema in many quarters, with idiotic terms like ‘elevated horror’ or ‘post horror’ bandied about. Films like Bad Samaritan will often be written off as contrived or silly, but the maniacal glee which director Dean Devlin injects into the film is at times breath-taking.
Sean (Robert Sheehan) and Derek (Carlito Olivero) work as valets at Nino’s restaurant. In order to make some money on the side, they take advantage of their position to rob customers’ homes whilst they’re eating. When Sean breaks into the house of the wealthy and arrogant Cale Erendreich (David Tennant) he discovers a woman is (Kerry Condon) being held captive. Unable to free her, he flees and contacts the police. However, this time he’s crossed the wrong man.
There are a whole host of problems with Bad Samaritan but they are massively outweighed by just how much fun it is. This is largely down to Tennant who is spectacular as a malevolent, twisted and vengeful asshole. Whilst the script does get tied up in itself at times, there’s some great writing and comedic moments towards the end. Driven by one of this year’s best bad guys, Bad Samaritan is great entertainment.
Bad Samaritan is released on DVD by Signature Entertainment on 8 October.
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