It's evident several of these figures are not what they seem, and that the El Royale has its secrets, guarded by a young concierge (Lewis Pullman). Darlene is among them, on her way to a casino gig in Reno: others include an ageing priest (Jeff Bridges), an obnoxious vacuum-cleaner salesman (Jon Hamm) and a resentful hippie (Dakota Johnson).

Here a group of strangers gather, on the usual dark and stormy night. More precisely, we're right on the border between California and Nevada, the site of the El Royale, a glitzy yet seedy motel with a literal dividing line running straight down the middle.

The setting is the California at the end of the 1960s, a time and place that seems to hold a continuing mythic allure for American filmmakers. Not what they seem: John Hamm as Laramie Seymour Sullivan, Jeff Bridges as Father Daniel Flynn and Cynthia Erivo as Darlene Sweet. Embarking for once on a solo project, Goddard comes on like a performer keen to step into the spotlight, while retaining a tendency, visible across much of his past work, to view individuals as pawns manipulated by hidden, sinister forces. In this light, maybe it's more than coincidence that one of the central characters in El Royale is a gifted but neglected backing singer named Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), presumably modelled on real-life pop and soul singer Darlene Love. Until now, though, it's been hard to get a handle on where his personal interests lie, given his tendency to team up with better-known talents such as Joss Whedon, the co-writer and creative instigator of Goddard's debut feature The Cabin in the Woods. Credit: Twentieth Century FoxĪllegory is the stock-in-trade of Goddard, a veteran manipulator of pop culture tropes whose credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the found-footage monster movie Cloverfield, and more recently the metaphysical sitcom The Good Place. Chris Hemsworth has his moments as Billy Lee in Bad Times at the El Royale.

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