By Robert Scucci
| Published
Over a decade before The Hangover came out, a much darker, infinitely more messed up comedy about a bachelor party gone wrong called Very Bad Things was making its theatrical rounds. The only difference between the two films, aside from the series of increasingly brutal murders that are delivered in a slap-stick fashion in the 1998 black comedy, is that The Hangover went onto be a successful franchise with two sequels, while Very Bad Things only earned $21 million against its reported production budget of $30 million.
While both films start with a very similar premise, Very Bad Things was never meant for a mainstream audience because the group of men never finds a tiger in their bathroom, but instead has something much, much worse to deal with when they party a little too hard in their Las Vegas Hotel.
Very Bad Things starts out innocently enough as we get the rundown of each character involved in what’s to come over the course of the next few days. Kyle (Jon Favreau) and Laura (Cameron Diaz) are ironing out the final details for their upcoming wedding, while Robert (Christian Slater), Charles (Leland Orser), and brothers Michael (Jemery Piven) and Adam (Daniel Stern) prepare to the groom-to-be for his stag night in Las Vegas.
The bachelor party in Very Bad Things quickly takes a disastrous turn when Robert hires a prostitute, who Michael inadvertently kills in the bathroom when he slips and impales her head on a towel hanger. While everybody rightfully begins to freak out, Robert, who couldn’t have been portrayed by anybody else other than Christian Slater, quickly devises a plan to get rid of the “105 pound problem” that’s bleeding out on their hotel floor.
Though the rest of the group has their reservations about disposing of her body and moving on with their lives like Robert suggests, they find themselves arriving at the point of no return when a security guard enters their hotel room to investigate a noise complaint, and Robert murders him with a corkscrew without hesitation.
It Gets Much Worse
After a montage involving the dismemberment of two bodies in Very Bad Things, the gang heads out to the desert to bury the bodies, and head back home after making a pact to not ever talk about the incident again.
Slowly but surely, the bodies are discovered, and everybody reacts to the situation with varying levels of intensity. Consumed by guilt, Adam considers confessing about the whole thing, much to the disappointment of Michael, who’s carelessness made everybody an accessory to murder in the first place.
Robert, on the other hand, exhibits sociopathic behavior and gets just a little too much enjoyment from tying up any loose ends that materialize in the aftermath of the hotel incident.
Meanwhile, Kyle has to keep up appearances ahead of his wedding with Laura, who’s so hellbent on having the perfect ceremony that she doesn’t even notice the bedlam that’s playing out right in front of her as Kyle’s friends all become close to snapping under the pressure of getting caught for what they’ve all done.
As Very Bad Things progresses into its second and third acts, everybody is at their wits end because there’s no reasonable way to right what has been wronged, so everybody resolves to act in the worst ways imaginable in their efforts to save face, and themselves from getting caught and spending the rest of their lives in jail.
Nowhere To Be Found On Streaming
While Very Bad Things was always destined to be a cult film because of its subject matter, it’s an absolute shame that you can’t find the title readily available anywhere on streaming because it’s such an effective dark comedy for shamelessly pushing its principal characters into increasingly unhinged territory as they find themselves one step closer to being outed for their atrocious behavior.
Pushing the limit further and further with each passing scene, Very Bad Things is raunchy, violent, morbidly hilarious, and so out-of-pocket that if you enjoy The Hangover franchise but want something a little more extreme, you should rent the title on demand through Prime Video, YouTube, or Fandango at home.
