Cain's Cutthroats (1970) User Reviews

A grim and violent revenge B western.

[b_kite · 6/10 · 29 June 2018]

Following the Civil War, Confederate Captain Justice Cain has retired to a quiet life with his young son and black wife. However, the men of his old outfit, known as Cain's Cutthroats, have turned to lives of murder, torture and robbery. They attempt to convince Cain to ride with them once more. He refuses, and the Cutthroats murder his family. Swearing vengeance, Cain teams up with a colorful preacher/bounty hunter, and hunts down his family's killers one at a time.

The first half hour of Cain's Cutthroats is pretty violent and grim, we get a army payroll wagon robbery were a soldier gets his hand cut off followed by the rest getting brutally gun down, Then we get a pretty rough rape murder of a woman and a child gets gun down. Following this the film sets into a pretty run of the mill revenge b western. The two main men here Brady and Carradine are both great in there roles. Robert Dix and Darwin Joston aren't to bad either, but, the rest of the cast are pretty amateurish. You will also not find any happy endings with this film as well, and thats one of my main issues. As the film progresses they try to paint Brady as a impending bad guy a man overwhelmed with paranoid lust for killing these men. But, anyone who watches that first half hour knows they defiantly get whats coming to them, another weird thing here is how they keep referring to Brady's wife as black even tho she is very much white?. Director Ken Osbourne worked on a couple of b-movies before this including some with notorious b director Al Adamson, most of the cast and crew seem to have worked in "Five Bloody Graves" (1969). The late Don Epperson who also starred in the film and died shortly after sings one of the films three songs. There's also another version of this film called "Cain's Way" which has footage of a biker gang terrorizing people in modern time over the opening credits.

A Western Roughie.

[mikecanmaybee · 4/10 · 11 August 2021]

Director Ken Osborne brings us a real rough western which probably could not be made today with so many racial pejoratives. If is the murder revenge formula with some terribly graphic scenes that made me uncomfortable which may have been the Directors point. A solid "not too far over the top performance" by John Carradine as the (Preacher) and an excellent job turned in by Bob Dix as the leader of the bad guys.(Amison). Everybody else is OK with Director Osborn at times attempting a little humor and a couple of nude scenes, thank you ladies, to break up the bleakness of the film. That being said I would still recommend it for guys who don't mind graphic violence and a dark hunger for revenge by the leading man (Scott Brady) as Cain. If you decide to watch - it is best viewed before a shower as you will need one after watching.

Brady takes no prisoners, while Carradine takes their heads.

[rixrex · 25 September 2007]

Good revenge Western with Scott Brady on the hunt for the 6 men who killed his wife and son, and burned his home, shot him and left him for dead. Thing is that they used to be Confederate soldiers under his command. They are now thieves, killers and they want to be mercenaries, but he refuses to lead them, for good reason, and that turns them against him, plus they're not happy that he has a black wife.

After they take off, he's saved from death by John Carradine as a self-ordained minister who's also a "Dead or Alive" bounty hunter who, rather than bring in a whole body, only brings in the head, to collect the bounty, keeping them pickled in a barrel. Grisly yet humorous.

Brady shows no hesitation in slaughtering the renegades, and why should he? They killed his wife and son with no remorse. Even in situations when he could let some of them them live, he won't. He's so intent that eventually the bounty hunter even questions his motives. Regardless, we root for him to succeed. Plenty of good gunshot violence and shoot-out scenes.

The renegades are certainly a group of morons and imbeciles, and the smart Brady is more than they can handle. This is a public domain title that isn't too hard to find, and well worth it

Cutting Your Own Throat Would Be Easier Than Watching This Tripe

[zardoz-13 · 1/10 · 3 July 2007]

"Cain's Cutthroats" is an amateurishly made post-Civil War western saga about a renegade unit of Confederate guerrillas that are still fighting for the Stars and Bars. This low-budget, drive-in movie oater features uniformly shoddy acting by everybody except the venerable John Carradine and character actor Scott Brady. Director Ken Osborne specialized in grade Z exploitation movies and the evidence is apparent in this poorly-paced, ineptly written, and slovenly staged western. The overall idea, however, isn't irredeemable. Scott Brady of "The Storm Rider" plays Justice Cain, formerly Captain Cain, C.S.A., who led a band of merciless Southern raiders called 'Cain's Cutthroats.' The shallow, formulaic screenplay by TV writer Wilton Denmark, Ralph Luce, and Osborne doesn't reveal much about the notoriety of 'Cain's Cutthroats' during the Civil War.

After the 'Cutthroats' ambush a U.S.Army payroll shipment and hack off a sergeant's hand off to get the strongbox, they ride off hooping it up because they have stolen so much money. Amison (Robert Dix of "Five Bloody Graves), the gang leader, convinces his renegade cohorts that they must persuade their former military commander to lead them again so that they can raise a new army to fight the Union. Justice Cain isn't pleased with the remnants of his guerrilla unit appear at his isolated house in the wilderness. Although he lets them feed and water their horses as well as crack open the strongbox, Justice wants nothing to do with them. Amison and the others are shocked when Cain won't lead them so they tie him to a hitch rank, beat him up, rape his high yellow African-American wife, and murder his adolescent son. The 'Cutthroats' set fire to Justice's house and put a bullet in him. Predictably, their lone bullet doesn't finish off the grief-stricken husband/father who had to suffer through the ordeal of the villainous gang raping his wife and repeatedly using the politically incorrect N-word.

Justice recovers from his bullet wound and finds himself in the back of a wagon while a preacher utters some final words over his dead wife and son. John Carradine of "The Grapes of Wrath" happens along and digs the bullet out of Cain. Although he appears well-dressed in a black suit and hat, Preacher Simms is more than a minister of God. He is also a bounty hunter. He rides in a horse-drawn wagon and keeps the heads of men that he has shot for bounty soaking in salt in a barrel until he can get them to the authorities and obtain his reward money. Simms and Cain team up and pursue the bad guys, killing them off one by one. Osborne directs this nasty little western—in some ways it resembles Clint Eastwood's "The Outlaw Josey Wales—without style. The shoot-outs are ineptly staged and none of the characters—even Cain—are remotely sympathetic. The rape scene is particularly repellent. The blood and violence in the opening robbery is rendered without subtlety. The photography looks really bad. Incidentally, the advertising campaign with John Carradine with a noose around his neck has nothing to do with the plot of "Cain's Cutthroats." Cutting your own throat would be easier than suffering through his atrociously awful nonsense.

Billy Joe Was A Bastard-Of-A-Crybaby!

[strong-122-478885 · 1/10 · 19 October 2014]

Yes. There are some Westerns out there that I find so bad that (hey!) they're actually good.

And then, there are other Westerns out there (just like Cain's Cut-Throats, in fact) that I find so bad that (p.u.!) they stink like a freshly dumped load of pure you-know-what.

This ugly, cheap, grubby Cowboy tale (from 1971), about rape, revenge and religious hypocrisy, certainly scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel when it came to its cheesy story, its z-grade production values, and its pathetic performances by one and all of its cast members.

Cain's Cut-Throats was such lousy Western junk that it had this viewer literally hating all of its characters with an angry passion, regardless of what side of the law that they were supposed to be riding on.

Of course, as a means of spicing up the story and attempting to appeal to all of the hot-blooded males in the audience, Cain's Cut-Throats underhandedly inserted some gratuitous female nudity into a number of key scenes. But this film's story was just too cruel-minded and sadistic in nature for a pair of ripe boobs to make any difference, one way or the other.

In a nutshell - DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS RUBBISH!

Best Of The Drive-in Westerns

[FightingWesterner · 7/10 · 9 August 2009]

I first saw this as a kid on local television back before infomercials and their credit card wielding enablers banished entertainment from late night TV.

The one thing I remembered from the first viewing was John Carradine as the preacher/bounty killer who preserves outlaw's heads in a barrel of brine so he wouldn't have to carry the whole body in for a reward.

Seeing it again years later I have to say there's much more madness to Cain's Cuttroats than I remembered. It is a nasty, cynical little drive-in movie with lots of bloody gun shots and tons of insane characters and situations.

The plot involves a group of ex-Confederate marauders who try to enlist their former commanding officer (Scott Brady) in their crimes. Rebuked, they proceed to rape his wife and kill her along with his son. Saved by Carradine he and his new partner go on a grim hunt, killing and collecting the heads of the marauders.

The standout performances are by Darwin Jostin (best remembered for John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13) as a pitifully disturbed murderer, who's death scene was great and makes me wonder why he wasn't a bigger star and Robert Dix as the loathsome one-eyed leader of the vicious pack. The scene where he takes his eye-patch off so Brady's wife would have to look at his empty socket as he rapes her is very disgusting!

Cain's Cuttroats sags a bit in the middle but the fascinating and bleak conclusion is worth waiting for.

Could have been better, but not too bad.

[tla.baio · 26 May 2000]

Cain's Cutthroats is a fast paced and violent western worth seeking out. It is the story of an ex-Confederate army captain named Justiss Cain who is one day visited by his ex-gang of thieves and killers who served with him during the Civil War. The gang has hopes of Cain joining them in order to "give it to those blue belly yankees." When Cain (who has changed for the better since the war) refuses, it leads to a fight which ends with his family being killed and him being left for dead. Once Cain is nursed back to health by a preacher/bounty hunter passing by, the hunt is on for the gang. For Cain it is revenge he seeks. For the preacher, it is the reward money to be gained!

The performances by the cast are fine. The actors playing the gang do a very good job of making the audience root against them. John Carradine is probably the most memorable as the preacher. He is funny, witty and at times very crazy! The action scenes, although well handled, are a bit excessive due to some very bloody exit gunshot wounds. As for the ending, although satisfying and just, I found it too abrupt. Fans of rare westerns will want to seek out this little known oddity and also the Barry Shear film, The Deadly Trackers; which Cain's Cutthroats reminded me of. Happy Hunting!!

Rock bottom western

[Wizard-8 · 29 April 2015]

Even if you are as big a western addict like I am, I can't imagine that you'd find "Cain's Cutthroats" entertaining; it's not even entertaining on a so-bad-it's good level. For starters, it's painfully obvious that the so-called budget was brutally low - among other aspects, the costumes look cheap and amateurish, and there is a minimum of props and set dressings. I guess the movie could still have succeeded under those circumstances, but there are other bad things that get in the way of it. The musical score is strident and too contemporary for a western. The acting (except maybe for John Carradine's) is lazy and amateurish. The direction tries to be rough, but comes across as crude and heavy-handed. The worst problem, however, is the script. It takes a third of the movie to set up the situation and characters, and it unfolds both at a slow pace and with important information missing here and there. The screenplay does come up with a somewhat unexpected ending, but it's too little too late. Only for Carradine fans who have wanted to see their idol wearing a dress in one scene.