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Very Bad Things
EMAILPRINTPolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 14 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Peter Berg
Directed by: Peter Berg
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 25, 1998
DVD: May 27, 2003
Running Time: 100 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong, grisly violence, sexuality, drug use and language
Starring Jon Favreau, Leland Orser, Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, Rob Brownstein, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern, and Jeanne Tripplehorn
The grim misadventures of a group of friends in Las Vegas for a bachelor party.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Friday Night Lights Hancock The Kingdom The Rundown
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Peter Berg's scandalous sick-joke thriller is packed with rude and clever twists, and it delves, with surprising force, into the hypocritical postures of corporate-era male bonding. The cast is terrific, especially Christian Slater.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Cameron Diaz is sublimely screwy as the single-minded bride determined not to let anything--including the deadly mishaps that keep shrinking the wedding party--spoil her nuptials. [30 November 1998, p. 111]
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
In an era when the words "President" and "penis" can occupy the same sentence and prompt nothing but yawns, this picture actually manages to surprise, to startle, yes, to administer a series of small but genuine shocks.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The tone, which veers uncertainly between dark comedy and suspense, is uneven, and the characters are not vivid enough to stabilize the load of a shifting, runaway plot.
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
The film has a real sense of a situation slipping out of control, with marvellous displays of hysteria matched by movie trickery that spreads the edginess to the audience.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Basically a very conventional movie gussied up with a few jaw-dropping moments. Unlike genuinely amoral pics such as "Heathers" or "Shallow Grave," it never seems really comfortable with its characters' actions.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
When it is good, the film by "Chicago Hope" actor Peter Berg is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The writer of Very Bad Things has done poorly by the director. This is particularly painful because they are the same person, Peter Berg. Director Berg shows lively talent, focused and controlled. Writer Berg shows some talent, too, but he is wobbly in design and purpose. [14 December 1998, p.26]
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The result is a film that's far superior to Neil LaBute's "Your Friends and Neighbors'' and more entertaining than Todd Solondz's "Happiness.''
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Very Bad Things only getes worse. [25 November 1998, p. 44]
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Humorous slashings and car accidents constitute similar high points in a film that is glaringly short on ''Scream''-style self-mockery to match its dopey mayhem.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It never makes you laugh that hard. Not even close. And so the thing becomes a bloody assault on the senses that commingles atrocity with tedium.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
As the characters behave with symbolic excess in situations designed to provoke their bigotry and self-interest, superficial black comedy periodically gives way to painful drama.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Isn't a bad movie, just a reprehensible one. It presents as comedy things that are not amusing. If you think this movie is funny, that tells me things about you I don't want to know.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This is Berg's debut outing as a director, but other first-timers, namely Joel Coen (Blood Simple) and Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave), had it all over him for blending horror and hilarity.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Very Bad Things is a guy film, and, as such, it's a dog. The gross-out humor lacks edge, the guilt never kicks in, and the outrages are predictable. It's one flat brewski.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Michael Sragow
It poses as an unblinkered look at the hangups and hypocrisies of the bourgeoisie. In reality it's an empty, narcissistic tantrum.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's a worthless bit of low-grade satire that's as sophisticated and entertaining as a pile of twigs.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
A dark comedy about a bachelor party gone awry, it is excessively violent, ghoulish, and gory. Very Bad Things is lack-of-taste taken to the extreme.
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
There is a line between gallows humor and tastelessness, but Very Bad Things apparently doesn't have a clue where that might be.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Pitched as a black comedy, the film thus far seems to have divided audiences between those who think it unaccountably hilarious and those who see it as the latest manifestation of what might be called the new nihilism.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Robert B. gave it a10:
One of my favourite movies of all time: Dying was never so funny!
[Anonoymous] gave it a2:
Utterly sickening and unfunny.
C.B. gave it a5:
Shame on Peter berg for wasting this amazing cast.
Rob You gave it a0:
Abhorrent.
Gnarles gave it a9:
It's a near-classic - as long as you have the guts to watch it on its own terms and resist the urge to twist and contort it into something else. The lesser critics who beat this up for its "nihilism" and "grossness" appear to be painfully unaware that their line of inflated, pompous thinking is the real thing being ripped to pieces in "Very Bad Things". Or maybe they DO realize it, and their dumb reviews are their protection. At any rate, it took major guts to craft a movie like this and I admire Berg for having them. Doesn't always work, but there are two amazing scenes for every bad one. Slater is sensational, a pitch-perfect parody of male self-help postivite thinking gone terribly wrong. Too bad it's so far been his last good performance. See Very Bad Things. Don't judge. Just watch.
Vee gave it an 8:
This movie is simply - funny. gives you something to laugh at in almost every scene. VERY surprised to see it on the "all-time low scores list".
