Ireland Looks Bloody Brutal in First ‘Bad Day for the Cut’ Trailer

This morning, our trusty staffers Matt Singer and Erin Whitney head off to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, the biggest week in American indie cinema. For us commoners who won’t be able to attend, however, we’ll have to subsist on the steady stream of coverage along with the deluge of trailers that always accompanies this parade of premieres. The next week-or-so will offer first looks at the toast of the fest in an effort to get the general public gassed for an eventual wide release, and the fun got going today with a sneak peek at one of the Midnight selections.

Bad Day for the Cut is a brutal tale of bloody revenge set in Ireland, following in the grand tradition of bone-snappers like Get Carter. The feature debut from director Chris Baugh stars Nigel O’Neill as Donal, a humble farmer living in a rural village with his dear ma. He’s something of an odd bird, keeping to himself and his odd routines, but he doesn’t bother anyone and the neighbors let him alone. Until, that is, a group of thugs break in and kill Donal’s mother in what appears to be a home invasion. Donal then starts bothering quite a few people, usually with a loaded gun. His mother was no saint, however, and he soon learns that she had secrets of her own as well.

Face-punches, point-blank shotgun blasts, jets of blood that splat onto tile floor like spin art — this looks like a rip-roaring good time, just the sort of twisted fun that has found a home in Sundance’s Midnight sidebar for years. And if you dig the trailer, just imagine seeing the film in the middle of the night with two hundred people as hyped-up as you are. What’s that? No, I’m not salty about missing Sundance at all, what would give you that idea?