Writer/Director Stewart Thorndike’s 2014 film Lyle introduced a contemporary riff on Rosemary’s Baby. Thorndike’s latest, Bad Things, continues the filmmaker’s horror explorations of motherhood, this time through Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. A psychological horror film set at an isolated, wintry hotel becomes ground zero for deeply flawed characters to explore their ghosts to mixed success.
Much like Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance, Bad Things introduces the lead character Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) as someone already a bit unstable from the outset. The idea is to spend a weekend with friends at the hotel Ruthie inherited, albeit an isolated hotel trapped in yesterday with outdated décor and a lack of guests. While Ruthie’s less enthused about staying at a place that holds traumatic memories, she’s distracted by her messy relationships with supportive girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef), Cal’s fiercely loyal pal Maddie (Rad Pereira), and the esoteric Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), with whom Ruthie has cheated on Cal before and still harbors attraction.
Deep-seated traumas combined with complicated relationships in a secluded place dislodged from time transform a business venture test run into a violent nightmare.
Image credit: IFC Films
Thorndike uses Kubrick’s classic horror movie as a blueprint to track Ruthie’s unraveling through flawed relationships. She begins as volatile and unreliable and only becomes more so when her sweet yet pushy girlfriend sees her inheritance as a potential business venture against her protestations. Cal also thinks this is the ideal weekend where Ruthie will finally take their relationship to the next level, despite Maddie’s mistrust and constant attempts to exploit Fran’s feelings for Ruthie. That constant needling, trying to corral Fran’s emotional outbursts, and the looming specter of Ruthie’s estranged mother (Molly Ringwald) mean that Ruthie begins from a place of extreme duress and tension.
In this depiction of complicated characters allowed to be flawed, selfish, and sloppy, Bad Things is at its most engaging. Rankin more than rises to the occasion of playing a protagonist prone to lashing out, giving into temptation, or retreating behind impenetrable emotional walls on a whim. Engaging in dialogue with The Shining, complete with ghosts, hallucinations, and iconic scenes revisited, underscores the central theme of self-preservation in the wake of misdeeds, feelings of abandonment, and haunted memories.
Image credit: IFC Films
As refreshingly unapologetic as Bad Things can be for its unreliable, unlikable characters, introducing them already in a state of disarray and chaos leaves little room to evolve. Ruthie’s channeling of Jack Torrance means her arc is more of a flat line, albeit one that gets a bit bloodier as it barrels toward its conclusion. Maddie feels shoehorned into the proceedings, existing solely to drive a wedge between Cal and Ruthie and nothing more. Though it’s not a complete retread of The Shining, the parallels make it easier to predict the story’s direction.
Bad Things lets its women misbehave, affording them the space to cheat, lie, and come undone by mommy issues or unhealthy relationships. It does this by conversing with Kubrick’s seminal psychological horror adaptation of Stephen King’s story, warts and all. It’s a little too reliant on The Shining regarding the film’s identity. While the character arcs aren’t robust enough to satisfy, Rankin’s unhinged performance and the contemporary update to familiar work make for a fascinating horror exercise all the same.
Bad Things made its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and will release on Shudder on August 18, 2023.
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