Film Review: Bad Times at the El Royale

"This Is Not A Place For A Priest, Father. You Shouldn't Be Here..."

Written and directed by the excellent Drew Goddard, the mind behind the likes of Cabin in the Woods and Netflix's first season of Daredevil, Bad Times at the El Royale bundles together an abundance of top-notch actors within the confines of a script which mixes together an Agatha Christie-esque air of neo-noir mystery with a very obvious nod to the quirky and wordy works of Quentin Tarantino. Set in the dying embers of the late 1960's, the majority of the action takes place within the lifeless, unkempt eeriness of the titular hotel, one straddled with history and echoes of a previous life involving the rich and famous but now suffering from a lack of custom primarily due to a newly founded inactive liquor license. As soon as the film's colourful band of characters slowly check themselves in however, the presence of the murky collection of cats including Jeff Bridge's (Hell or High Water) Catholic Priest, Donald "Doc" O'Kelly, Dakota Johnson's (Fifty Shades Freed) rebellious young Emily and Jon Hamm's (Tag) travelling vacuum salesman, Seymour Sullivan, result in the mysteries of the hotel and the secrets of its' guest's unraveling with particularly violent and menacing ends. 

Whilst Goddard has proven to be successful in the past with work which has always remained entertaining and interesting, even if at times not exactly for everyone, Bad Times at the El Royale is unfortunately the American's first cinematic turkey, an excruciatingly overlong and plodding mess of a movie which although begins in intriguing fashion, fails to warrant almost two and a half hours worth of your time as it drags its' way towards a finish line without any real sense of purpose or point. Whilst the film does boast a healthy selection of well-executed dialogue heavy set pieces alongside excellent central performances from the likes of Bridges and Cynthia Erivo's wandering soul singer, Darlene Sweet, as the film crosses over the hour mark, the over-reliance on wasteful backstory and wandering narrative stretches result in a painful longing for the action to come to some sort of meaningful end. Enter Chris Hemsworth (Avengers: Infinity War), whose appearance come the ninety minute mark as a curly haired, spiritually baffling and overzealous cross between Charles Manson and Jim Morrison, meant the film then decides to go on for another excruciating forty five minutes, concluding with a soppy and rather weak attempt at humanising a particularly annoying character and then finally ending with a final gasp of saintly praise as I left my seat and headed to the exit. Whilst not totally awful, Bad Times at the El Royale is a simple case of style over substance and made me check IMDB pretty quickly to see if an editor was actually hired at all to do a decent job. On inspection, Lisa Lassek, you are in my bad books. 

Overall Score: 5/10

Film Review: The Strangers: Prey at Night

"Is Someone Else Staying Here? I Thought We Were Alone..?"

With it being an entire decade since the release of Bryan Bertino's mildly successful 2008 American horror, The Strangers, the follow up sequel, subtitled Prey at Night, finally hits the big screen under the direction of English filmmaker Johannes Roberts, whose previous credits include 47 Metres Down and The Other Side of the Door, with Bertino still attached to the project by supplying the screenplay for the movie alongside American pen pusher Ben Ketai. With the original film based on a culmination of the infamous Manson Family murders and a personal experience of break-ins in and around an area to which Bertino lived within, the 2008 release was nihilistic oddity with a genuine nasty streak which paid tribute to the likes of famous video nasties including Straw Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House on the Left, and what Prey at Night offers is a very familiar, ultra violent slasher flick which overcomes a wide array of weaknesses thanks to a stylish, retro tone and various interesting and well orchestrated set pieces which offers the case for Roberts' movie being a case of a sequel which improves upon the basis set by its' predecessor. 

With an opening act which introduces the quartet of leading familial victims including Christina Hendricks' (Drive) mother figure, Cindy, Martin Henderson's (Everest) Mike, and the two teenage children played by Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman, the attempt to flesh out any reasonable characterisation within the first twenty minutes fails pretty spectacularly, with the reasoning behind the families sudden venture to the most vacant of caravan parks not really expanded upon, resulting in a complete absence of empathy for when the inevitable violence eventually occurs. Thankfully however, once the action begins, Prey at Night continues the overly hyper-violent tone of the original to impressive means, utilising a surprising early character death to set the pace for remaining hour or so of the piece, and with the aid of the creepy masked killers, the iconic image of the series so far, the murderous rampage which the film embarks upon is surprisingly entertaining. Central to the film's success however is a strangely ironic and satirical undertone, one which is beefed up by a wholly comedic and off-kilter 1980's jukebox soundtrack, and one which allows individual set pieces to blossom with a heavy sense of style, particularly a latter act scene involving a superbly manoeuvred confrontation at a swimming pool which for me, took the film to a higher level than it possibly should have ever been, and although Prey at Night does indeed fall into a realm of cliche and predictability when looking back as a whole body of work, its' the film's style and nasty streak which makes the sequel work to an entertaining degree. 

Overall Score: 6/10