Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A tight-knit group retreats to a snowy hotel for a relaxing getaway to recharge and rekindle their relationships, only to be confronted by psychological horrors waiting for them when the resort’s past patrons begin to haunt the halls.
No, silly, not Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday, the other one, one of the most famous horror movies ever made: The Shining.
With Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film still regarded as one of the most chilling horror films to grace the genre, it’s a bold move to lift those basic plot points and plop them into a shoestring-budget indie movie. But writer-director Stewart Thorndike’s second feature, Bad Things—which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and streams on Shudder August 18—doesn’t have any apprehensions about the comparisons it’s bound to generate.
Thorndike and the small handful of actors in her movie all operate with an indisputable confidence, twisting its inspiration into something perfectly eerie and driven by feminine rage, until it feels almost entirely new.
Bad Things opens with a shot of Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) trudging through the snow with a chainsaw in her hands. From there on out, it’s not hard to guess how some character may meet their end. But Thorndike isn’t dealing in subtleties, and being able to devise how characters might die lets the audience stop trying to stay one step ahead and immerse themselves in the film’s stunning location.
Ruthie inherited the Comley Hotel from her grandmother, and hasn’t been back to the inn since she was a child. The hotel is a sprawling structure, modest from the outside, but with a delicious interior that recalls the preppy pastels and unique chintz of ’80s design.
Ruthie and her girlfriend, Cal (Hari Nef), have arranged a weekend away with their mutual friend Maddie (Rad Pereira). The three of them planned to live it up inside the hotel, running around partying, while telling stories of its alleged hauntedness. (“That’s not that many,” Cal assures everyone after reminding them that at least five people died on the premises). This is their last chance to spend some time in the place before Ruthie meets with buyers to sell it off. But complicating their festivities is Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), Ruthie’s ex, whom Maddie invited along so she wouldn’t feel left out, despite Cal, Maddie, and Ruthie trying to push Fran out of their friend group for good.
Even with their apprehensions, the four friends kick off their getaway by getting along. The copious amounts of whiskey and heated pool don’t hurt much either. But before long, Fran begins to see things that recall Cal’s stories about dead hotel guests.
Two gorgeous models, who were murdered on the grounds while out for a run, appear to Fran, jogging in place. A young girl shows up for continental breakfast, mentioning something strange about her hands. And then there’s Ms. Auerbach (a very fun Molly Ringwald), a sexy hospitality provider whose seminar videos on YouTube ring through the halls from Ruthie’s phone, being watched incessantly.
Examined apart, these apparitions don’t seem very scary at all The most menacing aspect of their existence are the joggers’ thumping, rhythmic footsteps that weave in and out of the film’s sound design. Anyone looking for a legitimate chiller, filled with ghouls and jumpscares galore, won’t find them at the Comley Hotel. Bad Things’ horrors are primarily psychological, as Ruthie’s return to the hotel triggers painful memories of her childhood, with an absent mother who has reentered her life now that the hotel might make their family a few bucks.
Ruthie’s desire to remain undaunted by the memories at her back, and stay present so she can be the perfect girlfriend, slowly eats away at her over the weekend. Rankin is exceptional when it comes to hopping between friend mode and freakout mode, visibly stuffing down her impending break from reality every time someone from the group calls out to her.
Without Rankin at the helm, it’s easy to imagine a version of Bad Things that would cripple under its own ambition. Thorndike’s script is pointedly slow and glaringly referential, but Rankin lifts the arid material with an equally dry wit that makes her the film’s most assertive presence.
Dexter-Jones and Nef stay nipping at Rankin’s heels, with the former’s quick descent into madness amping up the film’s anxiety. Well, as best as one can in a film where the stakes are basically nonexistent and the scares are even more absent. Most of the creepiness of Bad Things is derived from Jason Falkner’s score, which opts for low, pulsing synth tones and the occasional frantic drum beat. It’s a sturdy effort that drives the film’s climactic sequences, which are in turn buoyed by a stellar performance form Nef, who is just melodramatic enough to give Bad Things’ cold script some much-needed originality.
That iciness is intentional, and serves the film best when it comes literally. Exterior shots of the hotel’s time-wrecked sign, and all of the snowy landscape that surrounds the building, enhance the film’s atmosphere tenfold. The camera stays in perennial motion, with graceful tracking sequences and stunning wide shots giving a great sense of scope, allowing us to wonder what might be lurking behind the ajar door of every room.
Thorndike lets the hotel—a location seemingly lost in time—do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to crafting the film’s ambiance. But the camerawork enhances the preexisting structure’s uncanniness, recalling my favorite guilty pleasure watch: abandoned hotel exploration videos on YouTube.
Like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, the Comley becomes its own character. And though “reminiscent of” doesn’t even begin to cover Bad Things’ narrative and thematic similarities to Kubrick’s masterwork—the jogging ghosts in the hallway are basically those creepy Kubrickian twins—Thorndike ultimately succeeds in spinning her version into a frigid, modern take.
Bad Things both veers on ludicrous and is completely believable, culminating in one of my favorite climatic shots of the year. Its director’s exasperation with genre norms tinge the film, and that indignation isn’t always executed so covertly. But Bad Things is just perceptive enough to work, and give obnoxious Kubrick fanboys a stiff middle finger in the process.
