So much average

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Absolutely brilliant

Blistering performances.

This is a brilliantly made dark comedy with a good cast, acting and directing. The pace is perfect without any dull moment. The only problem is with the plot which becomes a bit overdone with the number of killings towards the end, hence my rating 9/10 instead of 10/10. Highly recommended.

This runs like an Americanised version of SHALLOW GRAVE and received a lot of flak for the excessive gore, violence, and sick humour (me, I don't mind). However while I was at the cinema I found myself enjoying this one quite a bit. I'm a big fan of black comedy and this film hits just the right spot. Criticism was levelled at the actors who spend most of the film shouting or screaming their lines and it is certainly over the top, but this just adds to the fun. It's a violent, fast ride showing a spiral into madness and murder.Christian Slater has never been better as a psychotic, and here, he's an estate agent. Many people call him a Jack Nicholson-wannabe but I think he's good value here and elsewhere. The other notable name is Daniel Stern, an actor I have watched play nerds in 80's horror films to comedy losers in the '90s. He always gives a mugging, way OTT performance and this film is no exception. I almost see him as a comedy version of Bruce Campbell. The best bit in the film is where he goes mad at the service station and thinks everyone is watching him. The rest of the actors all look rather similar but it's worth watching just to see Slater and Stern. Cameron Diaz is the love interest, and she gets to broaden her talents. She's not really my sort of actress, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt in this case.VERY BAD THINGS is not the best film ever made, but if you're looking for action and violence mixed with sick comedy, then I recommend it. Interestingly, the director is Peter Berg, star of diverse things like SHOCKER and COP LAND. In my opinion, he does a good job here.

Very bad, indeed. Bad script, bad performances, bad direction, bad, bad, bad. I was expecting a lot more from a very talented cast, so I can only lay the blame with writer/director Peter Berg. This poor guy has no sense of what makes for a 'black' comedy. 'Very Bad Things' is devoid of irony or satire; instead, its' cardboard characters lurch blindly through silly moments spouting impossibly bad dialogue. 'Go', released the following year, is an example of black comedy done well: sharp dialogue, a diverse cast of characters and insane but ultimately believable scenarios. Hell, this isn't even up to the rather low bar of 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'. One reviewer here compared this to 'Dr. Strangelove'; are you kidding me?

This is a very black and disturbing film, but I loved it. I have a bit of a sadistic streak when it comes to movies because I really like films that are more realistic in the execution and their endings. In regards to the familiar plot of boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back again, I have hardly seen it, and when I have, the relationship has not lasted. Then there is the girl that hates the guy and finally falls for him at the end, and though I have seen that happen, it has never happened to me.Five guys go on a trip to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and during the events where they take almost every drug available, one of them accidentally kills the prostitute while having sex with her in the bathroom. This is when the problems happen because they all freak out, except for one who says that the best thing to do is to take her out into the desert and bury her because they cannot get the police involved. Unfortunately things go from bad to worse when a security guard walks in and finds the body, and they deal with it by killing him as well. This guy (Christian Slater) quickly takes control of the situation, and very quickly the other four find that things have gone out of their control. Through Slater's act of killing the guard, they are all implicated.Things have worked out very well though as they successfully hid the corpses in the desert and all returned to Los Angeles none the worse. Unfortunately guilt begins to gnaw away at one of the men and he begins to have anxiety attacks. In dealing with this at the mock wedding, he is accidentally killed by his brother. When the guys wife stumbles on the truth, Slater once again takes control of the situation in a way that the others do not want done.The theme of this movie is how things go from bad to worse, and through a small incident, the lives of these men are destroyed. They constantly try to rise above the situation but it continues to dominate them and things continually get worse. The children are given to the guy and his fiancé in the will, and things seem to work better, only to discover that the life insurance policy has expired and the price of their house has dropped substantially, leaving them with two children, one of them physically handicapped, and very little money to look after them.As I said before, this is a black comedy (though Man Bites Dog is still the blackest comedy that I have ever seen) and we attempt to laugh at the misfortunes of others. We want to laugh because what we see in this movie is so disturbing that we want to put it at the back of our minds and forget that such a thing has ever happened. Unfortunately, like the movie, we simply cannot do that because our past always continues to rise up and haunt us. In one way it is one of the guys freaking out, then it is a curious wife, and a brother who has overcome with depression because he has killed his elder brother.Nothing good comes out of what happens and I guess this in a way really mimics life. What we are laughing at in Very Bad Things is life itself because what we are confronted with is something that could happen to us. Slater plays the level headed one, but unfortunately, his solutions end up causing more problems that they solved. In the end he must also face not only the consequences of his actions, but he must also face he greed.All of the characters have a tragic flaw in them. The younger brother's lust, and anger finally undoes him as he accidentally kills the prostitute and then his brother. The elder brother simply cannot remain calm, and it is this liability to panic that brings about his death. The fiancé simply cannot say no, and lets his fiancé come wife, dominate him, as well as Slater. He is able to say no to the prostitute, but she is not applying pressure to him. As soon as he says no, she leaves, but his wife and Slater will not let him say no. Slater is a very intelligent and dominant man, but he falls apart when he steps on the wrong toes. He believes that there is nothing that he can do, but unfortunately when he gets inbetween the fiancees, he discovers that when you annoy the wrong person too much, they lash out.Nobody redeems themselves in this movie, and those that did not do wrong, are brought apart by other's wrongs. Nobody comes out on top, nor can they say at the end that they have won. Instead there one mistake has wormed deeply into their lives and ripped it completely apart. Now I think about the depth of this movie, I am seriously considering adding it to my collection.