Gayle Rankin Dominates Bad Things‘ Uneven Hotel Hellscape

Stewart Thorndike’s hotel hellscape Bad Things has all the makings of a claustrophobic slasher—with shades of Norway’s snowy resort hack ’em up Cold Prey—but that’s hardly the outcome. An abandoned labyrinth of empty bedrooms and joyless ballrooms echo isolation horrors with a sterilized Holiday Inn Express flavor, mimicking how other filmmakers have translated the sounds of silence into unpredictable mania. Reality seems inconsequential as characters exist in a purgatorial realm of indecision and self-destruction, which Thorndike sometimes fails to command. Bad Things wants to be quirky, callous and cutthroat before an explosive ending, but never aggressively combusts as we’d hope—even with chainsaws and flesh-cutting blades in play.
Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) inherits a run-down, abandoned hotel from her grandmother that she intends to sell, lest she confronts traumas from her childhood. Ruthie’s partner Cal (Hari Nef) insists they update the joint and return it to profitable glory. Ruthie, Cal, their friend Maddie (Rad Pereira), and tag-along Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) plan a private getaway at the hotel to assess damages and whatnot, despite the new owner’s protests. There’s something Ruthie fears about the wretched place, and unfortunately for the group, they’re about to find out firsthand.
Thorndike’s more interested in psychological warfare between volatile personalities than hunter-stalker brutality. Bad Things presents characters with moral dilemmas and tests their willpower, quickly plunging into a race against snuffing out or fighting against earned consequences. Bloody imagery is largely saved for the final chapter, which messes with the pacing as tension remains conversational between friends who are quick to backstab, gossip and embrace the hotel’s eerily bad-faith atmosphere. Thorndike’s screenplay is less a slasher subversion and more a slow-burner that chooses catty mind games over Saw traps.