Gayle Rankin gives a convincingly terrifying performance

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 26, 2024

What’s most evident in filmmaker Stewart Thorndike’s horror/drama Bad Things are the clear lines that can be drawn not only to The Shining but French extremist film High Tension and a little-known ‘80s gem called Curtains.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 3, 2024

If you’re waiting for the script to clarify, don’t: Ultimately seeming less ingeniously tricky than just kinda random, it chooses not to pick any particular explanation, instead offering a shrug...

| Sep 20, 2023

Thorndike moves toward significant storylines and then retreats, failing to take advantage of its potential.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 7, 2023

“Bad Things” is an example of the growing body of Generation Z horror, where a chainsaw competes with the destructive power of emotional trauma.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 1, 2023

Despite boasting great performances and a creepy, claustrophobic setting, Bad Things bites off more than it can chew and becomes a meandering slog with little pay-off.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 1, 2023

Although it gets points for representation, acting and a beautiful piano score by Jason Falkner, the film is a bit of a mess.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 31, 2023

Bad Things tries out a lot of ideas, many of them good, but a crisis in identity results in slapdash execution.

| Aug 24, 2023

the gulf between Bad Things’ lofty goals and its realization could not be wider, as the film is sorely deficient as both genre entertainment and intellectual exercise.

| Aug 23, 2023

From Glow to Shining, Gayle Rankin is stuck in a wannabe surreal ghost story that is light on creep and left wandering for a purpose while one of the worst supporting performances of the year tries to inject hysterical fidelity drama to produce horror.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 23, 2023

Bad Things is a poisonous performance piece balanced by standouts and letdowns, earning its recommendation based on Rankin’s unhinged performance.

| Original Score: 6.5/10 | Aug 21, 2023

'Bad Things' combines all work and play for one ghostly, bloody affair.

| Aug 21, 2023

What the film lacks is more emotional depth.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 21, 2023

While there are elements that work well, the overall piece leaves a lot to be desired. It has plenty of potential but doesn’t quite reach it in the end.

| Original Score: C | Aug 20, 2023

Bad Things certainly won’t have Stanley Kubrick rolling in his grave; if anything, one can hope he’d be waving a rainbow flag.

| Aug 19, 2023

I wish the movie had a little more going on and a more structured plot that felt fully thought out, but there’s still something here I think is worth checking out, and it especially works as a perfect companion piece to the filmmaker’s one previous film.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 18, 2023

“Bad Things” juggles too many elements with too little focus. It plays out like a waiting game, with a pace that stumbles through its 84-minute runtime with plenty of hollow conversations and a few teases of tension.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 18, 2023

At a time when most movies are derivative without engagement, it’s thrilling to get a film that finds originality in reimagination.

| Aug 18, 2023

Gayle Rankin excels in a queer spin of ‘The Shining’-like psychological horror-drama.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 18, 2023

As a queer riff on one of the best-known horror stories, Bad Things ends up feeling a little undercooked, but its immersive visual style and strong performances carry it past Thorndike's uneven plotting.

| Aug 17, 2023