WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale, in theaters now.


Drew Goddard's directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods caught audiences by surprise when it premiered in 2012. Marketed as a traditional, slasher-esque horror film, the twisted horror comedy quickly demonstrated its true colors, revealing a deeper, darker and much more Lovecraftian ulterior motive. It effectively turned a well-established genre on its head, played with a space that had layers and layers of lore, and still built something funny, tense and, at times, terrifying.

So it only makes sense that Goddard's latest film, Bad Times at the El Royale, should follow suit. While clearly not as risky as The Cabin in the Woods, El Royale twists the thriller genre just enough to stay interesting.

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The film feels foggy for much of its run time, with the viewer waiting for a curtain to be drawn back, exposing a master who pulls the strings, or else a larger plot, like the Old Gods and office setting from The Cabin in the Woods. And sure, there are a handful of moments like that in Bad Times at the El Royale, but the film does a great job at making you think more of those moments are coming, only to subvert expectations and take another direction.

In some instances, like the reveal that the hotel's bellboy has been videotaping guests on the orders of his employers, the film hints there's something deeper happening. But as we learn more, it's more difficult to detect a conspiracy, as it appears his employers are merely perverts who sell the illicit recordings to make money. It's a reverse bait-and-switch, with the truth revealed to be less interesting than what's imagined.

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYAL

In other moments, the audience is hit over the head with the film's boldness. There's a tense meetup early on between Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), where, as they're getting to know each other, she clearly understands something isn't right with the pastor. She digs a bit and realizes he could be suffering from early-onset dementia or Alzheimer's, and the two share a fairly bittersweet exchange. While wholesome, there's nevertheless an air of tension in the scene, and the threads begin to come together when it's revealed Flynn plans to drug Darlene's drink and search her room for a buried briefcase of stolen cash. But just when we think he's about to succeed, he's knocked unconscious by a bottle to the head.

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Darlene, it seems, had a feeling something was off, and decided to act, rather than wait. In one sense, this scene subverts the thriller trope that the person in distress is caught unaware and tortured. But it also catches the audience off-guard in doing so, and this moment becomes the kickoff for the tone of the rest of the film.

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A similar example occurs when Laramie Sullivan (Jon Hamm) attempts to break Rose (Cailee Spaeny) free of her "captive," who's actually her sister, trying to get her away from a murderous cultist. Sullivan is killed, abruptly, by a shotgun blast to the torso, producing a sense of dread in the misunderstanding of the situation, but also acting as a gateway to the characters finding out about the hotel's hidden windows.

It's one of a handful of scenes that pulls in viewers, just for a moment, to let them know the stakes are real, frustrating, and entirely unlike other films in the genre. Goddard employed similar abruptness in the deaths of the main characters in The Cabin in the Woods, up until the last moment, when we learn there really were a group of ancient, evil gods buried beneath Earth's surface.

Cabin in the Woods Giant Evil Gods

El Royale also carries the grim sense of humor that Goddard peppers throughout his other films. Cloverfield, The Martian, The Cabin in the Woods and now this are incredibly serious movies dealing with potentially world-ending catastrophe, whether it's a monster the size of a skyscraper or a resource shortage on Earth. But there's always time for some twisted humor.

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Timing in death scenes, the overuse of blood or gore, or an out-of-place quip play into his films, and it's in full force in Bad Times at the El Royale, with character deaths and jump scares keeping audiences on the edge of their seats, only not in the same way a thriller or horror film typically would.

The film may not be a total subversion of everything we've come to know about the thriller, but it's further evidence that Goddard's films aren't always what they seem, and clearly have the makings of cult classics. And if El Royale is even a fraction as celebrated as The Cabin in the Woods is now, it will have succeeded in that goal as well.


Written and directed by Drew Goddard, Bad Times at the El Royale stars Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Nick Offerman and Chris Hemsworth. The film is in theaters now.