Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Seven strangers. Seven secrets. All roads lead here.

Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

Thriller Mystery Crime Drama vietnam war post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd)casino hippie audio tape motel jukebox concierge richard nixon payphone storm vacuum cleaner

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Intimate, nostalgic, grave and meticulous.

intimateepic
contemporarynostalgic
gravecomic
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Reviews on TMDB

Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.

Wuchakon TMDB · Aug 20238/10
**_Tarantino-esque flick about one rainy night at a dubious motel in Northern California_** In 1969, four strangers spend the night at the El Royale hotel on the border of California & Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. These visitors consist of a priest (Jeff Bridges), a singer (Cynthia Erivo), a vacuum cleaner salesman (Jon Hamm) and an edgy young woman (Dakota Johnson). They’re going to have an unforgettable night. Lewis Pullman plays the meek manager of the motel that used to be a bustling business while Chris Hemsworth and Cailee Spaeny have key roles. “Bad Times at the El Royale” (2018) is a crime thriller that takes the milieu of the “Psycho” flicks and combines it with the dialogue-driven style of Tarantino. The later “The Virtuoso” (2021) is comparable, although this is more colorful, not to mention half an hour longer. Not only is it superior to that film, it’s also superior to the movie the writer/director is most known for, “The Cabin in the Woods” (2012). To appreciate “El Royale” you have to be prepared for a flick that has the confidence to take its time as the characters are fleshed out and their secrets revealed. Some don’t like how things pan out in the last act revolving a
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GenerationofSwineon TMDB · Jan 202310/10
Ok, Wow, I don't think I've seen a movie like that since the 90s. Some have gotten close, but this one absolutely stinks of clever 90s independent film... ...at least in that era where studios were putting serious bank behind indie films in an effort to score awards and produce something new that audiences would eat up. The wow sort of starts with the soundtrack, which is brilliant found music that not only fits the era, but fits the film like a globe. The casting is perfect, with a special shout out to Cynthia Erivo who sold her role as an R&B singer as if, well, she is one, but the delivery was absolutely brilliant on her end, despite the fact that she is one in real life. I guess it's where basically playing yourself pays off in spades. She was brilliant, but then, so was absolutely everyone else. And this is all put together with a plot that twists and turns and situations that just move from bad to worse in the best possible Hollywood way. It's a movie you have to see.
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Stephen Campbellon TMDB · Jun 20195/10
**_Derivative, predictable, and dull_** > _There is something about hotels that I find very romantic. You get to try on a different life in a hotel. You're usually in a new place when you're staying in a hotel. There's something about the experience that allows you to be a different person. You can think to yourself: "Oh, this is what it would look if I were in Paris. This is what it would look like if I were in New York." There's something about it that transports you somewhere and that, I suppose, has always been good for creativity and imagination. I love the entire spectrum of hotels, b__ecause for a creative person, it's about trying on a new life. For the El Royale, I liked this idea of a hotel that had a shadier side to it._ - Drew Goddard; "Exclusive _Bad Times At The El Royale_ Interview With Drew Goddard" (Simon Gallagher); _WhatCulture_ (October 9, 2018) Following the genre-bending, utterly insane, and extremely funny _The Cabin in the Woods_ (2011), _Bad Times at the El Royale_ is the second feature from writer/director Drew Goddard, who has also accrued writing credits for Matt Reeves's _Cloverfield_ (2008), Marc Foster's _World War Z_ (2013), and Ridley Scott's _The M
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