The movie opens with a wordless prologue set on a stormy night in 1958, where a criminal (played by Nick Offerman) buries a duffel bag beneath the floorboards of his hotel room before copping a bullet to the chest. The good times, however, have since come to an end, with the resort falling on hard times after losing its gaming license.
Situated on the border of Nevada and California (with a literal line running through its center), the aforementioned was once a glorious hotspot of the Lake Tahoe region, where celebrities and the like would gather during the ’40s and ’50s to enjoy its bustling casino, lavish bar, swanky bungalows and sizeable pool - even if drinking was only permitted on one side and gambling the other. Six years after deconstructing the horror genre in 2012’s ingenious Cabin in the Woods, writer-director Drew Goddard is back with his long-awaited follow-up and second feature, Bad Times at the El Royale, a trashy Tarantino-styled crime thriller set within the confines of a single location, the El Royale.
