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Film: Strange Darling
Year: 2023
Director: JT Mollner
Writer: JT Mollner
Starring: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner and Barbara Hershey
Review:
This was a movie that caught my attention at the Gateway Film Center. Now I don't watch trailers, but I'll look them up and check to see after figuring out the title if they are in genre. Seeing that this was considered a horror film, I caught this at the theater after hearing good things. I’ve also now given it a second watch to see how I sit with my end of year list.
Synopsis: nothing is what seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree.
We start this off with text scrolling explaining these events happened back in 2018 to 2020. There was a serial killer at work in the western United States. They started around Utah and the events moved them to Oregon. This reminded me of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with how it sets the stage. We're also told that this is a thriller presented in six chapters. What is great here though is that it is told out of order.
This starts in the middle of a car chase, which is Chapter 3. Our two leads are known as the Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) and the Demon (Kyle Gallner). She is in a car where he is in a truck, following her. There is a stretch where he stops, pulls a gun out and shoots her. This causes her to crash. She then flees into the woods, with him giving chase. The woods give her cover until she finds a house belonging to a couple of mountain people, Frederick (Ed Begley Jr.) and Genevieve (Barbara Hershey). The nightmare doesn't end there.
The movie then jumps back to chapter one, to set the stage. It will jump around as we learn more about this couple and like the synopsis said, things aren't as they seem. This makes for a wild ride as expectations are subverted and how information is provided can change what we believe in as this deadly game of cat and mouse plays out.
That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I'll start is that I loved what this does. The comparisons ahead of seeing that I saw from friends is Quentin Taratino meets Brian de Palma. Having now seen this, I can see what we're getting there. It is Pulp Fiction-like with how the story is presented. Plus, the dialogue is snappy and creative. The visuals, especially with vivid colors, are like Carrie. That is also the hallmark that he borrowed from Dario Argento and Mario Bava. I don't want those to set the bar too high as these are just surface level as this does its own thing.
Now that I have that out of the way, I got sucked into what this movie was doing. The set up is good by telling us that this story is told in six chapters and an epilogue. Then jumping right into the middle of the story captures the audience. We see the Lady fleeing from the Demon. It doesn't tell you why until later. We just know that she is injured, he's angry and doing cocaine. It is from there that we get to know both characters more and that whatever happened stemmed from them going to a motel for a one-night stand. Hooking us in the way that it did is great.
This isn't the deepest story, which is something that I needed to set up here. This is more about the acting and their interactions to fill in the backstory. Seeing Gallner chase and stalk Fitzgerald in two of the first three chapters we see, we assume that he's the villain. I also think this is a classic idea as we assume that men would be the aggressor. Since we are seeing him come after her, that also adds to it. There are elements for this taken from chapter one dialogue. The tension is there from the beginning with seeing if the Demon will catch her. The story then builds to the climax though and it makes both characters shades of grey. I'll say here that both Fitzgerald and Gallner are great here. They're perfect for their roles.
I'll then just finish out going over the rest of the cast. Jason Patric is our opening narrator to set the stage. I didn't even realize that until looking at the cast list. Giovanni Ribisi also voices a character that we don't see. He's also a producer and this is his feature film debut as a cinematographer. Begley and Hershey are great as this quirky older couple that are living in the woods. Other than that, we get to meet others in the last few chapters to finish telling the tale. The rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.
All that is left then is filmmaking. This is where the movie shines. I've already gone on about the editing about how we jump in the middle, which hooks us. We then get backstory to develop the characters before moving back to action to keep us engaged. I was impressed here. I'd say that the cinematography was also good. How things were shot and the framing was great. They do creative things here. The effects were also well done. They looked practical, which impressed me. Part of this is credit to how things were shot as well. Something I noticed this time around, a character changes their perception of things after they see a flash of something. It makes more sense for a character name and why certain things happen. Other than that, I enjoyed what they did with the soundtrack. There is a recurring use of the song Love Hurts. It is even in the world of the movie. As a fan of that song, that's a perk. The rest fit the atmosphere needed.
In conclusion, I thought this was a solid film. What I knew coming in made this sound good and it lived up to those expectations. How they presented the story was interesting and it kept me engaged. The best part here is the acting. Our two lead performers do an excellent job. This is also well made with the cinematography, framing, effects and soundtrack. I'm glad that I didn't sleep on this one. It held up with that second watch and I wouldn’t be shocked to see this in my top ten, at the least.
My Rating: 8.5 out of 10