Stewart Thorndike wondered, “Where are all the female Travis Bickles and Jack Torrances?” And then set out to make Bad Things as the answer. The story focuses on a group of friends as they escape the city to spend the weekend in an abandoned hotel. But it’s not just any hotel, Ruthie Nodd (Gayle Rankin) inherits the hotel from her grandmother, and with bad childhood memories threatening to burst to the surface, Ruthie hopes to sell the hotel and put the past behind her. But her partner Cal (Hari Nef) has hopes of returning the place to its former glory. They are joined by their amiable friend Maddie (Rad Pereira) and mysterious grifter Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), who threatens to drive a wedge between the couple. As the friends dance, cook, flirt, and fight through the hotel halls, they begin to find themselves entwined in the hotel’s embrace and start doing… well, bad things to each other. We have an exclusive closer look at the Bad Things trio below.
Yeah, they look like they’re about to fuck some shit up. Bad Things director Stewart Thorndike set the story in The Comley Hotel, “A place where women do bad things. Instead of seeing bad things being done to women, we see women doing bad things. I wanted to create a space for this to be explored. A space apart from the male-dominated world. The hotel is distinctly feminine – all mauve and brass and increasingly blood red and milky – and is haunted by ghosts of women who came under its spell.” Stewart adds, “If The Shining unleashed a self-entitled monster of patriarchy, Bad Things responds with rage. Let rage reign”
Stewart Thorndike second feature film, Bad Things will premiere in competition at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. It stars Gayle Rankin, Hari Nef and Molly Ringwald. Her debut feature Lyle, a queer horror film starring Gaby Hoffmann, premiered in 2014 and continues to play at festivals. Keep your eyes peeled for Bad Things hitting Shudder later this summer.
