Strange Darling (2024) Review

When The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) and The Demon (Kyle Gallner) cross paths, their affinity for each other turns into a boundary pushing one-night stand which then transforms into numerous, unexpected entanglements that put a serious kink into a serial killer’s ongoing attempts to outwit the law and up their body count.

That’s all I should be telling you about this. Seriously. My worry is that I’ve already divulged too many details by so much as even sketching the basic premise. This is a redefinition of the cat and mouse thriller and to ruin any of its many surprises is absolutely not my intention. Go into this one as cold as you can. Stop reading the review now if you want to, I’m fine with that.

So, if I should be dropping as few hints regarding the many standout moments of Strange Darling, what can I tell you other than that it’s highly likely to appear in a list of my Top Ten horror films of 2024 and that you should see it as soon as you possibly can? Hmm. Okay. Let’s give it a go.

(stares at document for half an hour, goes to make coffee, feeds cats, stares at document for another half hour, goes to make another coffee, reads War and Peace, does tax return and so on)

Right.

It opens with a text crawl and a sombre, Texas Chain Saw Massacre-style voiceover which advises the viewer that what they’re about to see is based on true events. Whereas this seems like a neat little reference to those “ripped from the headlines” movies of the 1970s – and it is – this is also the first of countless times writer/director JT Mollner is going to properly mess with your mind.

And we’re straight into a piece that announces itself as “A Thriller In 6 Chapters”, heralding the use of a narrative device which will instantly comfort or irritate. However, we don’t begin with Chapter One. Of course, we don’t begin there. Why would we? We’re dropped in at Chapter Three, right in the middle of a chase. From then onwards the story will jump back and forth, informing the overall tale as to what led up to that moment and its curveball-throwing consequences.

Actually, when I said Strange Darling opens with a text crawl, it’s preceded by a title card which reads “SHOT ENTIRELY ON 35MM FILM”, proudly establishing its visual cred before making good – and then some – on its promise courtesy of first-time D.O.P. Giovanni Ribisi’s gorgeous cinematography. As an actor, Ribisi has been around the filmmaking process for decades but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the eye for smart framing and sumptuous visual flourishes demonstrated here.

There’s no doubting that Mollner’s script is clever and multi-layered, dispensing the requisite, queasy carnage while also confronting gender politics and dynamics, but all those smarts wouldn’t pop on screen quite as brilliantly if it weren’t for the dazzling performances of Gallner and Fitzgerald. Gallner is masterful at playing everything close to his chest, showing his affable and dangerous side without giving away any clues as to his genuine, underlying feelings. Fitzgerald provides a formidable foil, delivering a knockout, fearless, exhaustingly physical performance which instantly made me want her to appear in every single movie henceforth.

As much as the action focuses on The Lady and The Demon, the supporting turns are just as important in both tying the plot strands together and adding further, head-spinning ducks and dives to it. Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey are terrific as two old hippies living a carefree life in their cabin out in the woods until they’re dragged into the nightmare scenario. They’re so sweet and the M.O. of the murderer is so casually, calculatingly cruel that I couldn’t help but experience a visceral reaction to their idyllic existence being threatened.

The song “Love Hurts” is used throughout and, bloody Hell, it certainly does in the world presented by Strange Darling. Z Berg’s fragile, aching cover of the tune is apt for a glimpse into the lives of such damaged souls. Other Berg songs soundtrack the psychological battling, their quiet simplicity disguising something genuinely disquieting just below the surface. It’s just one more of this project’s great choices.

Strange Darling is a film in which you can feel the almost sadistic glee it takes in wrongfooting its audience and, if you’re someone like me who watches so many movies and still ends up thinking “How did I not see that coming?” with an amused shake of the head, you’ll be regularly delighted by this one. As it stands, it brings an exciting breeze of freshness through a tired format, it’s a whisker away from being an instant classic and I’ve a feeling that time will establish this as a prominent movie of the serial killer subgenre.

Movie Rating:

Strange Darling trailer