Gripping story with well-crafted characters

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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.

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.

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

"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.