★★ out of ★★★★★
🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Stewart Thorndike.
Bad Things actually has some really good things going for it. Not all these things are bad. Bad Things also has one of the coolest and most well preserved 1970/80s remote travel lodge hotels. The location is perfectly roiled in soiled dreams, loneliness, and unmet expectations. The hotel is just drenched in melancholy. But sadly, that’s Bad Things biggest problem — not the melancholy, but the fact that they wasted this incredible set.
Bad Things, directed by Stewart Thorndike (Lyle), presents some pretty great things packaged up with a pretty decent cast, and, again, that perfectly preserved creepy hotel. One of the really cool things that the film also presents is a small-ish cameo from the great Molly Ringwald. But alas, like the hotel, she’s not used to her full potential.
The film involves a quartet of female friends who descend on the nearly abandoned hotel for one last hurrah. Ruthie Nodd (Gayle Rankin) has inherited the hotel from her grandmother, and she and her girlfriends decided that this sad vessel deserves a fond farewell. Director Thorndike quickly establishes that a) Ruthie’s girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef) really wants her to keep the hotel and not sell it, b) Ruthie may have had an illicit affair with her other pal Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), and c) Ruthie’s mom may (or may not) be living in Room #324.
To be clear, Ruthie’s mom is NOT in Room 237, that’s a floor below and down the hall. She’s likely in 324. There ain’t nothing in Room 324, but you ain’t got no business going in there anyway, so stay out! You understand, stay out!
As soon as Thorndike gets around to some basic story telling and plot development, the film’s logic path checks out. Multiple people begin experiencing hallucinations, there’s a series of odd encounters with ghosts from 1982, and it turns out their pal Fran may be a serial killing realtor. Assumedly Fran is out to (re)gain Ruthie’s affection so she can make a move on purchasing the derelict property. However, all these things and more make little sense and distract from the possibility of real abandoned hotel scares.
Thorndike keeps the audience at bay by not letting out too much information and the dribs and drabs that the audience receives is incredibly coy and non-sensical. There’s also some white ooze, which were going to assume is ectoplasm (because why not), that makes an appearance. Again, it’s unclear if the gooey goo is tied to the ghosts, Ruthie’s hallucinations, or just deferred maintenance on the hotel.
Even worse is that we’re treated to a ham-fisted reenactment of the final scene in 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre where the sun shines down on Ruthie as she dances around with chainsaw in her hands. Even more worse, the final scene poorly cribs one of the last frantic scenes in The Shining. It’s not in room 237, but again, one floor up in 324.
Bad Things contains some pretty solid acting, but when its coupled with a non-sensical story and ineffective use of the super-cool vintage digs, you know it’s going to get a bad review on Trip Advisor. You might even say we have our reservations about recommending Bad Things.