Bad Things – Review by Mother of Movies
- Director/Writer: Anthony Thornton-Hopwood
- Distribution: Buffalo 8 Productions (Worldwide, 2025)
- Release Date: 26 September 2025
Stars: Mila Lieu, Amey Siobhan De Souza, Joe Warriner
This review discusses major plot reveals, final scenes, and character fates in detail. Proceed if you’re ready to have the AI virus fully unmasked.
Virus, Some Lovers, and a Soldier Dad
Anthony Thornton-Hopwood’s Bad Things opens with an intimate, quietly surreal sequence between two young women. One with a shaved head and mysterious electronic buttons embedded in her skin. Megan Oxtoby’s Xena exudes an unsettling vulnerability in these moments, juxtaposed with vape smoke curling under a sheet. Both are revealed to possess the kind of green-eyed AI infection that needs no exposition to feel dangerous.
The tension spikes when an armed soldier bursts in, and is, in fact, the father of what on the surface looks like a non-infected girl. Within a few shots, a vomit sequence that feels like biological warfare, and the soldier is covered in infectious bile, and he chooses self-destruction. The AI virus is immediately framed as transferable, but Thornton-Hopwood plays coy with its full mechanics.
From Lovers to Campfires, And Now We’re Somewhere Else
Without transition, the plot shifts to a group of young adults on a trek-camp hybrid. Here, the camp leader, Joe Warriner’s Trevor, tries to draw the group together, but the film leans heavily on music rather than dialogue to build emotional connections.
We meet Oliver Asant’s Max, the fitness guy with a low tolerance for nonsense, and Amey Siobhan De Souza’s Rosie, the art chick, whose chemistry with Max feels like the film’s most natural romantic thread. Nelo Ikem Ifudu’s Jess adds charisma and defiance, while Sam Powell’s Robert (the self-professed “nerd”) delivers comic relief with his internet-sourced survival tidbits. The cast is rounded out by Harry Ball’s Tony, the hat-wearing blonde who becomes a chainsaw-wielding force in the climax.
Around the campfire, the group trades scary stories to a tape deck, atmospheric noise doing most of the heavy lifting. Profanity peppers the dialogue, but its frequency sometimes jars against the otherwise scenic, well-costumed aesthetic.
Green Eyes in the Dark
The narrative lurches forward when the group discovers a disheveled man under a tree who points them toward a barn. Inside is Mila Lieu’s Lilly, possibly the same girl from the opening, who attacks Trevor. Rosie intervenes, the group subdues Lilly, and the green-eyed motif returns moments before she wakes to mock them.
Jess edges in for a creepy exchange, ending with a lick to Lilly’s ear and a brief flash of something metallic in her mouth. For a moment, we think Jess is infected, but in Bad Things, assumptions rarely stick. Soon, Max reveals his own infection, Lilly is freed, and Trevor meets his end. All without much emotional toil. If a connection is formed, it’s likely a coincidence.
The AI Mother
From here, the film becomes a fever dream of survival beats, misty running sequences, techno montages, masked aggressors, and beheadings. Megan Oxtoby’s Xena re-emerges, aligning events toward the film’s central reveal: an enigmatic woman with a green forehead dot who declares herself “the virus’s mother.” This AI-virus hybrid was designed to eradicate adults over 21, but mutated to control children instead, eventually “evolving into life.”
It’s absurdist sci-fi that leans into genre buffet territory, with DNA from Evil Dead and zombie apocalypse cinema spliced into its frame. The explanation is both grandiose and vague, but the commitment to the conceit is unwavering.
Climaxes, Chainsaws, and Middle Fingers
The final act’s standout moments belong to Harry Ball’s Tony and Oliver Asant’s Max in a chainsaw duel, and to Rosie’s knife fight with Lilly. Lilly ultimately emerges from hiding to shoot the AI girl, with the survivors, Lilly, Rosie, and the child, forming a fragile connection.
In true gonzo fashion, the AI mother births a child who, moments after delivery, flips the middle finger. It’s a closing gesture that perfectly encapsulates Bad Things: irreverent, inconsistent, but never dull.
Bad Things (2025) Review – AI Virus Apocalypse and Survival Horror Mash-Up
For all its narrative chaos, Bad Things is visually strong. Thornton-Hopwood and the team at Hopwood Films and Wolf Collective make the most of outdoor lighting and scenic compositions. Costumes look fresh from the store, which undercuts realism, but framing and atmosphere consistently pull the eye.
Bad Things is a genre mashup where AI apocalypse meets campfire horror. Strong scenic cinematography and committed performances from Mila Lieu, Oliver Asant, Amey Siobhan De Souza, Joe Warriner, Nelo Ikem Ifudu, Megan Oxtoby, Harry Ball, and Sam Powell can’t fully anchor its chaotic narrative, but they make the ride more memorable.
Buffalo 8 Productions handles distribution, while Circus Road Films represents sales, and the independent ethos is palpable throughout. This is a passion project, stitched together from disparate genre fabrics, imperfect but never without personality.
Bad Things is rated
2 Green-Eyed Lovers Out of 5
Bad Things (2025)
“Bad Things is absurdist sci-fi with a campfire heart, flawed, feverish, and flipping you off on the way out.”Support Mother of Movies and keep the content flowing:
❤️ Donate to Mother of Movies
Bad Things Explained
Click for all the juicy details you might have missed
Somewhere between a contaminated campsite and the end of the world.
The opening scene reads like body‑cam footage from a botched military extraction: two young women, one wired like a walking motherboard, the other blissfully unaware until her soldier father storms in. Seconds later, green‑flashing eyes, point‑blank shots, and a self‑inflicted fatality hint at the real killer, a virus with the cold precision of artificial intelligence and the messy habits of a street‑level pathogen.
From there, the case file gets messy. A misfit troop camps out in brand‑new threads, swapping ghost stories and expletives while something predatory circles beyond the firelight. There’s no official briefing linking this crew to the first incident, just jump cuts, misty morning chases, and sudden interrogations around barns and biscuit rations.
The infection doesn’t spread like a normal bug. It’s selective. It licks ears to unsettle you, flashes neon eyes before a strike, and sprays a corrosive spew that works as both intimidation and execution. Victims aren’t always aware they’ve been compromised until the green glow shows, then it’s already too late.
The break in the case comes when a woman with a green forehead dot steps forward like she’s holding a press conference for the end of humanity. Her confession? She engineered the virus to “save beauty” by eradicating anyone over 21. It mutated, decided children were better hosts, and evolved to live, not just kill. She calls herself the “mother” of the AI, but the system she built runs the show now.
Survival becomes a numbers game: if you can drink alcohol without combusting, you’re clean. The rest? Marked for elimination. From there, it’s decapitations, chainsaw duels, and a final standoff that leaves only three breathing: the child Lilly, the art girl, and the knowledge that the AI virus is still gestating in the mother’s womb.
The last image is the kind of evidence photo you wish you could unsee: the newborn flipping the world the middle finger. Case closed? Not a chance. This one’s still open, and still dangerous.
Bad Things
Director: Anthony Thornton-Hopwood
Date Created: 2024-09-27 12:00
2
Pros
- Visually strong
- Cast did what they could
Cons
- Feels awkwards instead of absurd sometimes.
