The 2023 Tribeca Festival has been off to a great start and we were on the scene for the World Premiere of Bad Things which premiered Friday at Village East by Angelika in New York City.
“Bad Things” is a queer psychological thriller Directed and Written by Stewart Thorndike that is daring, bloody, and makes for a terrifyingly terrific film. The film stars Gayle Rankin (Netflix’s “GLOW”), Hari Nef (Barbie), Annabelle Dexter-Jones (HBO’s “Succession”), Rad Pereira (HBO’s “Betty”), and Molly Ringwald who unfortunately was not present. The film follows a group of four friends who escape the city to spend a weekend at an eerie abandoned hotel that Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) inherited after her grandmother’s recent passing, and hasn’t been back to the hotel since she was a child. Ruthie and her girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef) planned the weekend away with their friend Maddie (Rad Pereira), who invited Ruthie’s ex, Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) because they didn’t want to feel left out which leads to complications. At first, it’s a joke that the hotel is allegedly haunted, but things get darker over the course of the film.
Thorndike’s incredible film makes homage to “The Shining” in more ways than one with similar framing, shots, and tone. As the film unravels we see deeper and deeper into Ruthie’s childhood and her disturbing experience at the Comley Hotel as a child. As Ruthie struggles to decide whether or not to sell the hotel, a mysterious nature becomes ever-present, leading to constant questions about what is and isn’t real and whether Ruthie is seeing ghosts or reliving her own memories.
Gayle Rankin delivers an exceptional performance that we hope stays on the radar of audiences after Tribeca. We had the opportunity to speak with Gayle Rankin, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Rad Pereira, Director and Writer Stewart Thorndike, and Producer Lizzie Shapiro. This is surprisingly Gayle Rankin’s first time working on a horror genre film, and she shared on the carpet that she was “actually pretty traumatized by working on [“Bad Things”] in a really wonderful way. It really affected me, which was really special and helpful in terms of the psychological aspects.”
“Bad Things” is Writer/Director Stewart Thorndike’s sophomore feature in part of a trilogy about motherhood. “I wanted to make a movie that really showed the power of motherhood in a very exaggerated and apathetic way.” On the powerful performances from the leading cast of female and nonbinary people, Thorndile said: “It was very natural for me to create this world, but I also feel like it’s really important to just step into that world and force people to gaze away from what we’re forced to see all the time.”
Rad Pereira spoke on the beautiful queer representation within the film, they said, “It was really important for me to get to be myself in some ways in this movie by getting to play a non-binary character and getting to bring my full self and for others non-binary youth and trans youth to get to see someone like me in the movie and getting to see all of my fabulousness.”
Also in attendance to celebrate the world premiere at the Tribeca Festival were Hari Nef (Cast), Jared Abrahamson (Cast), Grant Greenberg (Director of Photography), Amy Williams (Executive Producer/Production Designer), Madeline McCloskey (Associate Producer), Nell Simon (Costume Designer), Lexi Tannenholtz (Producer), Dana Slosar (Cast), Holland Smith (Cast), Patrick Klein (Cast), Ariella Josephine (Cast), and Executive Producers Gus Deardoff and Geoge A. Lucas.
The film is set to be released on Shudder and AMC+ on August 18, 2023. In the meantime, check out our conversations with Gayle Rankin, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Rad Pereira, Director/Writer Stewart Thorndike, and Producer Lizzie Shapiro below!
