Bad Things

Playing out almost like a spoof of various genres with both macabre horror and mumblecore misdirects, it's an odd film that's often as lost as the charming characters themselves before settling into a strange groove that starts to cast a spell of its own.

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.

Some of the storytelling gets clotted, leaning too much on the girls shrilly screaming at each other. Bad Things, though, is sharply filmed, with cinematographer Grant Greenberg feng-shuiing the hotel spaces into tone-setting tableaux (with a touch of Twin Peaks’ kitsch).

Whatever the dynamics of this troubled, narcissistic same-sex quartet, “Bad Things” feels creepier than it is and promises frights or shocks and explanations it never quite pulls off.

Where the central four characters' friendship and intersecting romantic relationships are meant to be the film’s grounding center, there's nothing but flimsy connections and dead air. There’s no chemistry between the characters and no genuine feeling in their performances.