Let's make this clear, from the outset this is not a pleasant or enjoyable movie. It's about a supposedly bad (hates her adoptive parents, usual rage-against-life stuff) teenage girl meeting another teenage girl who turns out to be an out-of-control psychopath. On the surface the story shouldn't be terrible, it could work, it has worked. But not here, not for me anyway and I can understand people who give it a rating of 1 or 2. The characters are one-dimensional and ugly; there are no quiet moments explaining behavior or motives and absolutely zero relationship development. I didn't care what happened to any of these people and wanted to turn it off by the thirty minute mark. I hung in and watched the psychopath kill and attempt to kill numerous characters but found myself rolling my eyes too many times to count. Dumb characters, dumb script. Silly, silly movie. To each their own and some people might like it.

Bad Girl starts out as one thing and becomes something else. This is reminiscent, almost a homage, to the thriller flicks of the late eighties, early nineties, comparable to such films as The Hand the Rocks the Cradle, The Stepfather and most notably Fatal Attraction. While nowhere in that league, this film is quite serviceable by its conclusion. The standout elements are not the story, writing or direction, but the performances of the two leads, the girls. The father, however, is just awful. He's not directed very well either, which doesn't help. The other element that is noticeable throughout is the soundtrack. It wasn't until the credits that I saw the name of Warren Ellis. A brilliant musician and composer. The music is probably the highlight of the film. Subtle most of the time. The cinematography is quite solid also. Sadly the writing and directing let it down. The first half hour is slow, predictable, cheesy, unrealistic and annoying. It's a shame because you've already lost any sympathy for any of the characters by the time the story shifts into gear. They needed to have more depth, more rounded characterization for the audience to be drawn into their story. As it stands, it becomes something of a stock standard thriller, though quite well done. A missed opportunity and more of a showcase for the talents of its young leads. Mr Ellis has already proven himself many times over. Worth your time, sure, but go in with low expectations, persevere and you may just enjoy it for what it is.

I saw this film at the 'Roze Filmdagen'; the Amsterdam LGBTQ film festival. To be honest, it wasn't my first choice. As a gay man I'd rather seen a gay men's story...

But I was positively surprised by the quality of this film. All the production-work, all of the art-direction and all the camera-work are just great. And I really enjoyed the acting of especially Samara Weaving and Sara West, the two main actors, who put down a very involving performance. I guess the story isn't spectacularly inventive, but within it's genre it's a nice piece of work that kept me in suspense during the whole movie.