It’s a lot of bad things that one traumatized motel owner (Gayle Rankin) is wishing on her friends.
Stewart Thorndike‘s slasher “Bad Things” upends the tropes created by Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and gives an angsty queer twist to the horrors of staying in a deserted motel with those dearest to you.
Rankin stars as Ruthie who inherits a hotel ridden with bad childhood memories from her late grandmother. Ruthie’s partner Cal (Nef) encourages her to fix up the hotel and run the business, but Ruthie’s obsession with an Internet business guru (Molly Ringwald) inspires her to sell the company…and potentially kill anyone in her path. Oh, and did we mention the hotel just might be haunted?
Rad Pereira and “Succession” breakout Annabelle Dexter-Jones also star in the seductive lo-fi thriller.
“Bad Things” is written and directed by Thorndike, whose 2014 debut feature “Lyle” is considered among the top queer horror films of the 21st century. Follow-up feature “Bad Things” debuted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival; Thorndike is currently working on her third film, “Frigid,” which similarly is a slasher but focused on older women.
Thorndike told Filmmaker Magazine that “Bad Things” was distinctly centered in a remote location occupied only by women to harness the explosive quality of feminist energy.
“I really wanted this place, that was just for women to do bad things or to inhabit their rage, that was separate from the male experience,” Thorndike said. “I was very interested in the full capacity that a woman can go to inhabit her dark side, her power. Understanding that you need to step outside of society to let it play out. It was part of the germ in my gut of wanting to make the movie.”
The IndieWire review for “Bad Things” credited the charming campiness of the indie film, saying, “‘Bad Things’ constantly questions what is real or not, who is alive and who is dead, and what are ghosts or Ruthie’s own memories. Thorndike, who is among IndieWire’s queer filmmakers to watch, shines best in the first half of the feature with lingering shots on the emptiness of both the vast hallways and Ruthie’s own morality. It’s only when Ruthie is wielding a chainsaw in a feral state of desperation that ‘Bad Things’ tips too far tonally, but ‘Bad Things’ is still a very good time.”
“Bad Things” premieres on Shudder and AMC+ on August 18. Check out the trailer below.
