SYNOPSIS: With his divorce barely finalized, Warren retreats from the city he always resented to a quiet lake house, hoping to find some peace with his young son, KJ. But when a stranger named David turns up at the door asking for help, the night takes a turn Warren never could have anticipated. What begins as small talk over pizza unfolds into a taut psychological standoff, exposing secrets, shifting power, and a chilling connection that leaves Warren gasping for air.
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Director Statement by Chisa Hutchinson
What if we accepted each other?
Persistent stereotypes toward gay people still shape how they’re seen. As parents, as partners, as human beings. BAD DAD challenges those stereotypes by presenting a gay man as something we rarely see in film: a fiercely protective father.
I wanted to write something for my friend and collaborator, actor Brian McManamon. I thought about who he is as a person: an insanely talented actor and devoted acting teacher, a loving husband to his husband, and a proud father and how, despite his warmth and humanity, there are still people and systems determined to deny families like his their legitimacy. I wanted to write a story that allowed him to embody the strength, love, and complexity I see in him and others like him every day.
In BAD DAD, Brian plays David, a man whose protective instincts are pushed to their breaking point after his own son is hurt. What begins as an uneasy conversation between David and Warren, the father of his son’s bully, ends in tragedy. David’s violent actions at the film’s conclusion are not meant to be justified, but understood as a reflection of what happens when empathy fails and pain festers into something irreversible.
For me, BAD DAD is about the cost of alienation and the power of empathy. It asks audiences to look beyond fear and prejudice, to recognize that love and anger, compassion and grief, can all live inside the same human heart.
By portraying a gay man as a protective, flawed, and deeply human parent, BAD DAD aims to dismantle harmful myths and offer a more complete picture of who people are beyond the labels that divide us.
If this story can help even one viewer pause, reflect, and see another person more clearly, then it’s done what I hoped it would. Because ultimately, BAD DAD asks one urgent question: What if we accepted each other, before the damage was done?
