Quartile rating: 8/10 · 2 ratings
On Quartile, Bad Times at the El Royale scores 8/10 across five categories — strongest on Plot (Well Above Average), weakest on Ending (Below Average).
Ranked among Quartile’s Top Plot, Top Acting.
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.
Bad Times at the El Royale is a stylish neo-noir thriller with an exceptional ensemble cast (Bridges, Hemsworth, Erivo all standout), striking widescreen cinematography that makes superb use of the split-motel conceit, and a genuinely distinctive voice that blends Tarantino-esque structure with 1960s atmosphere and moral complexity. The plot mechanics are inventive and the character reveals genuinely surprising. However, the third act loses momentum once Hemsworth's cult leader arrives — the final confrontation feels deflated compared to the intricate buildup, undermining the payoff the film so carefully constructed.