Review:  Raising ‘Cain’ to heights of horror-thriller hilarity

It’s not every day you get to see a satanic-revenge home-invasion martial-arts thriller, but should another come along that’s as laughably cornball as “The Cain Complex,” you’d best hide until it blows over.

This heavy-handed howler of biblical portions marks the feature filmmaking debut of Marcello Zamarripa. The film concerns a family man (also Zamarripa, along with his actual wife and kids) suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder brought upon by the justifiable killing of his drug addict brother.

Making good on a promise to haunt him from hell, masked demonic manifestations of his brother and his gang descend on the family home. Dad proceeds to defend home with a little full-frontal guidance from a naked guardian angel, whose constant pleas of “embrace me and learn how to defeat them” are ultimately heeded.

It all culminates in a protracted, bare-knuckled fight to the finish in the world’s cleanest four-car garage.

Zamarripa, according to his website, is also an oil painter who specializes in Baroque chiaroscuro. He has given himself a thematically broad canvas from which to work, but this crass, cloven-hoofed “Home Alone” doesn’t merit serious exhibition.

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“The Cain Complex”

No MPAA rating.

Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes.

Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood.