Hal Kitchen
Invoking the classics is a dangerous game, and few movies invoke their influence more blatantly than Bad Things, director Stewart Thorndike’s feminine response to The Shining, in which four young women are tormented by ghosts preying on their personal baggage during an ill-fated winter getaway to a deserted hotel. Now, I think that The Shining is just about the best horror movie ever made, but given how much it deviates from the tone and story of the source novel, I’ve harbored some curiosity about seeing the premise explored from different angles. The Overlook holds a mirror up to the psyche of its inhabitants. Jack was a drinker obsessed with his delusions of professional responsibility but it would’ve found some other personal demon to lend its power to. Bad Things is of course not an authorized adaptation and more a pastiche playing on tropes that are well within the public domain and favored fare for horror tales: haunted hotels, a group of people snowed in together, etc. But the hotel here works much the same way, showing the guests visions of past inhabitants and amplifying the self-destructive voices in their heads.
In Bad Things, it latches onto serial cheater Ruthie (Gayle Rankin), who has brought her too-patient girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef), their friend Maddie (Rad Pereira), and their friend they don’t like, and with whom Ruthie has a history Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) up to visit the hotel Ruthie just inherited from her grandmother. Between those two women is a neglectful mother whose absence looms large over Ruthie, as does her past infidelity to Cal, who is resigned to giving her wayward partner another chance. But Ruthie’s on thin ice as it is, and Fran’s erratic presence is a catalyst no one needs, nor is that of Ruthie’s mom’s younger boyfriend (Jared Abrahamson), who’s also sniffing around in a pseudo-Dick Hallorann role.
So the board’s all set for a dark, psychological, and brutal descent into violent confrontation as each character’s minds’ begin to rapidly fray. The The Shining echoes don’t end with the core premise either, as the filmmakers throw in similar story beats and images, that find variable positions on the scale between fun little references and just tiresome reminders of how derivative this movie is. Sadly, though the film does have strengths, it doesn’t lean into them sufficiently to say it satisfies the demand for a fresh perspective on any of the tropes it recycles.
The ideas for the characters are all sound, with the girls’ weekend gone awry giving it a slumber party from hell, Bodies Bodies Bodies, type of feel. However, the characters themselves don’t get much in the way of opportunities to build chemistry. With the obvious pastiche and somewhat vaguely contrived setup, it often feels like a comic horror that forgot to be funny. Writer-director Stewart Thorndike said she wanted to make a ‘response’ to The Shining, but part of me wishes she’d just made a parody instead. As it is, Bad Things is just pretty dark, humorless, and brutal, which needn’t be a bad thing if it had the originality, psychological complexity, or even just outright skin-crawling terror to compensate for the lost sense of fun (…as Kubrick’s film did).
The film just doesn’t manage to capture the atmosphere or depth of character it would have needed to make this approach a real success. There are a few flashes of excitement now and then, but they’re rear-loaded to such a degree that you spend a long time feeling teased as if the film is pulling its punches until it lets fly and you almost wish it hadn’t (what I’d call a Promising Young Woman structure). The ending hits hard, in the most unsatisfying way, but the gambit results in a film that struggles to win you over for too much of its short runtime.
The film did have success in finding its cast and they are definitely its strongest assets. Rankin and Nef both do terrific work in their roles, credibly slipping into the parts of two people, one of whom is losing a battle with her personal demons, the other agonizingly powerless to help her loved one. Nef even gets a little Shelley Duvall towards the end and it’s really good, nice to see her getting an opportunity to show her commitment to a serious role again after her silly turn in Barbie. Sincerely impersonating one of the greatest performances ever put to the screen without embarrassing yourself is a huge achievement. I’d even say Rankin manages to play her part with the emotional commitment some have accused Nicholson’s turn of lacking (a stance I understand, but do not share). It’s just a shame that the remoteness of the direction leaves their hard work feeling a little as if it has gone to waste on characters we can’t get invested in.
The Shining is an especially hard film to imitate because in so many ways it shouldn’t work. All the people who think it doesn’t have no real shortage of ammunition. It is remote, suffocating, slow, and the characters are underdeveloped and unlikable. It throws a lot of disconnected and upsetting imagery at the viewer, with little invitation to make sense of any of it. The fact it all comes together into one of the most vivid waking nightmares ever put to film is a testament to the commitment and creative genius of everyone involved, from director Stanley Kubrick and original writer Stephen King via stars Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson to sound designer and composer Wendy Carlos, from whose work on the film it derives so much of its unsettling power. The Shining was lightning in a bottle and trying to emulate its deranged frenzy with an original story and a fraction of the budget was always going to be a tall order. It’s honestly a compliment to Thorndike and her cast that Bad Things comes as close as it does. Perhaps some audiences will find it a welcome antidote to its unapologetic influence, it certainly has the intentions to strike deep. It has some moments of greatness and nowhere does it take the easy way out and that’s to be commended, no doubt.
Bad Things will be released via AMC+ and Shudder on Friday, August 18.
