Bad Samaritan

Bad Samaritan

“Bad Samaritan” is a terrible thriller that is so bad it’s entertaining. A lot of people will probably think that this movie can only be enjoyed ironically or with some kind of emotional distance. Indeed, the serial killer horror film sounds like lowbrow kitsch: former “Doctor Who” star David Tennant plays murderous trust-funder Cale Erendreich, who chases after glassy-eyed underachieving artist Sean Falco (Robert Sheehan) in a sleazy, sub-Hitchcockian battle between snobs and slobs. It isn’t really good but it’s kind of charming because its creators seem to have had a great time coming up with tacky ideas.

Cale is perverse enough to try and ruin the life of Sean, a petty thief who breaks into Cale’s ultra luxe Portland, Oregon house. Just two floors above Cale’s garage set torture chamber where he keeps his Maserati and impeccably mounted tool kit, Sean finds an appropriately petrified Helen (Lisa Brenner) tied to a chair.

Like any lurid stoner horror flick worth its salt, the first thing you see in “Bad Samaritan” is Sean conspicuously smoking weed with his best buddy/fellow thief Derek (Carlito Olivero). Derek works as a restaurant valet and uses his position to help himself to clients’ valuables while they’re away from home. This table-setting scene of recreational drug use doesn’t tell you much about Sean but does cast an inadvertently funny light on the slow-burning first act.

Maybe it makes sense that Sheehan and Olivero’s highly visible breath rises from their mouths like dragon’s breath when they hang out outside after dark later on; maybe the one-time puff also explains why there are so many low-key red herring jump scares throughout the film’s first 45 minutes or so; or hey what about dimmer-switch-low lighting? Or hazy grey color palettes? Maybe this is what it feels like to be Cary Grant in a Hitchcock thriller only super high young and capable of making any number of dumb life choices such as calling cops on super rich dude with torture chamber built into his mansion

One of the greatest joys in watching “Bad Samaritan,” is spending time with subpar characters like Sean, whose dim-witted motivations are hard to decipher. This strange quality also happens to be the most attractive factor about Tennant’s character, an absurdly calculated villain whose motives remain a mystery (not really though).

Cale’s odd obsession with destroying Sean becomes much more tantalizing when you know his bizarre Freudian backstory involving horses and childhood trauma (which is hinted at during the opening scene of the film). Open-minded viewers will undoubtedly delight in seeing Tennant’s senseless killer half-glare and half-pout like Muppets’ Sam the Eagle as he methodically tears apart Sean’s life in ludicrously silly yet aggressively serious ways. No one is safe not his parents’ jobs, nor their Facebook password, and certainly not some college lecture on glaciers given by his girlfriend.

This film proves Oscar Wilde right: it doesn’t matter if you play “accurately” or not as long as you do so “with expression.” You don’t need technical expertise to create fun pieces of pulp fiction that are technically unsound even their sleaziest scenes have a certain charm about them.

In fact, those set within Cale’s remote cabin seem to be homey prisons where Helen has been locked up complete with designer blankets and Land’s End catalogue quality clothing decorated by Crate & Barrel but they’re not distractingly gory or nude-y (though there is some nudity and gore). Tennant makes Cale’s rote serial killer backstory bearable through his gamely hammy performance; indeed Pacman would eat scenery slower than this man tears it up.

What I appreciate most about “Bad Samaritan” is that its creators appear not only to have been long-term deprived of direct contact with actual human beings but also unaffected by such deprivation; hence their tin-eared dialogue choices throughout filming.

These filmmakers keep piling bad ideas on top of each other until literal bombs start falling out closets and skeletons leap out from premature graves while live menacing people pop out from convection ovens. But if you feel your ironic detachment creeping in at all remember: if Bad Samaritan works for you, then your enjoyment can’t possibly be that guilty.

Watch Bad Samaritan For Free On Gomovies.