Review of Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) by Teriek W — 13 Oct 2018

Drew Goddard's second directorial effort practices a balancing act between genre and social commentary. In genre, Bad Times at the El Royale recalls the voyeuristic manipulation of his 2012 satirical horror film The Cabin in the Woods mixed in with the aesthetic and narrative approaches of Quentin Tarantino from depiction of violence to nonlinear storytelling.

Goddard's reliance on genre styling provides a great strength and weakness. On one hand, the narrative game-play controls the levels of suspense, highlights the relevance of perspective and provides context for the scarred psyches of its most important characters. On the other hand, the genre styling pushes the narrative a little far beyond its welcome particularly as its subtext is a little too scattered.

However, that subtext is the social commentary, which provides another strength that Goddard smartly handles without the simplistic, angry caricature that has become the sign of our polarized times. Goddard's film explores the experience of women tangled in the web of uneven power dynamics exploited by men of moral corruption as well as how that corruption has forgotten an older generation of men and scarred a younger, incoming generation of men. In focusing on this, Goddard doesn't pretend that angels rest on one side or the other as his female characters aren't all paragons of moral virtue.

In the film's descending view of this dynamic and its orientating impact on its characters, Bad Times at the El Royale in no insignificant part rises above the average genre film. Unfortunately, its setup doesn't feel complete or well-paced enough to pack the full punch that might've made its exploration more walloping. Nonetheless, I'm still left reeling.