STRANGE DARLING is a lower budget horror-adjacent thriller currently playing in theaters. It’s one of those movies that premiered at Fantastic Fest, it had a cryptic trailer and some buzz, so I checked it out without knowing much, and that went well for me.
It starts off kind of winkingly pretentious. The first thing you see after the production logos is a card saying “FILMED ENTIRELY ON 35MM FILM.” I laughed out loud. It seems that others have written off the entire movie for that boast/marketing hook/disclaimer/joke/whatever. Pardon my French, but you’re being a bunch of fuckin silly billies. Did you ever see the opening title of UNBREAKABLE? Of course you did, and maybe you joked about it later but it wasn’t the one thing you had to say in any discussion of the movie UNBREAKABLE. Back then you knew how to let things like that go.
Next is a riff on the narration from THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, leading into the type of knock out opening credits sequence that warms my heart (with an “in” between the actors and the title, even). Then it says “STRANGE DARLING – A Thriller In 6 Chapters.”
I really like this type of storytelling, laying out at the beginning what the approach is gonna be. Oh, okay. Six chapters. Got it. Thanks for the heads up.
And then the first chapter is numbered Chapter 3. STRANGE DARLING, you wily sonofabitch, I see what you’re doing now. So we’re thrown into a high speed car chase on winding roads in rural Oregon, a mustachioed redneck type credited as “The Demon” (Kyle Gallner, RED EYE, RED, RED STATE) driving a big ass pick up truck, chasing and shooting at “The Lady” (Willa Fitzgerald, WILDCAT) driving a beautiful red ’78 Pinto. When she gets out she’s got a gunshot wound on her ear and she’s wearing red scrubs and matching Doc Martens. So we have many questions about what specifically is going on here, and we know that stuff will be filled in whenever it feels ready to show us chapters 1 and 2.
Good conceit. Good execution. But did I hear someone mutter something about it’s trying to be too clever, you hate it when they do that, you prefer any clever people making movies keep their cleverness to themselves out of modesty? That’s fine man, go watch most movies, I’m sure you’ll be fine. This one happens to be clever and I told it it was okay, in fact I welcome it, so mind your own business.
I’ve seen comparisons to Tarantino, but I don’t think it’s much like his style or genre. It did occasionally make me think of John Hyams’ ALONE, some scenes of THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, and in a more abstract way, PEARL. But I assume they’re just talking about the chronology. It is true that 30+ years ago Tarantino started with a couple movies that were non-linear, so people thought of it as his thing. And he has also used chapter titles. STRANGE DARLING writer/director JT Mollner probly likes those movies as much as we do, but he’s using the techniques in a different way. By numbering the out-of-order chapters he’s laying out a puzzle for us. Immediately we understand that there are two sections leading up to this, three after, and as we see more of them we keep track in our head what’s left. We join this cat and mouse chase out of context, wonder about how we got here, about what information we might be missing, and adjust our ideas as we find out more. It’s a fun game.
We’re told in the intro that a serial killer’s deadly two year spree crossed several states and ended here. The Lady runs through the woods, finds a farmhouse and begs for help from the eccentric ex-hippies (Ed Begley Jr. [COCKFIGHTER] and Barbara Hershey [THE STUNT MAN]) who live there. Next thing you know there’s already been a bloodbath. There’s some whiplash when we get to the beginning, a long scene of The Lady and The Demon having met at a bar and relocated to a hotel parking lot. They sit and talk for a while, the hesitation or foreplay to their one night stand including an unsettling discussion of the possibility that this guy could be a serial killer. But in that moment he seems like a cool guy and they seem like kind of a fun couple.
Most of the movie is just these two, but you do get to meet a few random bystanders, including that couple out in the woods, Frederick and Genevieve, who for some reason have speakers all over their property always broadcasting an Art Bell type radio show. (Warning: when it mentions sasquatch it’s not foreshadowing. Unless it’s setting up a sequel.) There’s a whole elaborate sequence of Frederick cooking a Sunday breakfast that seems almost good except for the exorbitant amount of butter he’s using, and then that he piles the sugary pancake treats on top of the meat and eggs and everything. You laugh at the decadence unless you consider what might be the significance of spending so much screen time on this particular meal. (Could be their last, is what I’m getting at.)
I knew I recognized director Mollner’s name when I saw it in the trailer – I guess it was from news stories about him writing Frances Lawrence’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s story The Long Walk. He’s directed one previous feature, a western called OUTLAWS AND ANGELS (2016). Before that he did shorts (also shot on film), and before that he was an actor (he spent a year starring in Tony and Tina’s Wedding at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas). The most interesting fact I’ve learned about him is that he grew up working in his family’s haunted house attraction – Wikipedia describes him as “heir to the Freakling Brothers haunted houses in Las Vegas, NV” – and the Hollywood Reporter confirms that even in the midst of promoting STRANGE DARLING he’s about to return home to help with the family business during haunt season. I guess it makes sense with that background that he’d bring a sleight-of-hand approach to his screenwriting.
One odd thing about the movie is that Giovanni Ribisi is the director of photography. I saw that credit on the trailer and did a double take. Yeah, I guess it’s kinda like when John Malkovich became a puppeteer. Apparently Ribisi took all that unobtainium money and started collecting camera equipment, and he’s as much of a 35mm buff as Mollner. They became friends when they were both sitting at the Kodak table at the American Society of Cinematographers awards!
He’s also the producer and the voice heard on a radio. Anyway, it’s a good looking movie, with its different modes of lighting: blue neon, yellow hotel lamps, Bic lighter inside enclosed space, sunny afternoon, each of these getting a chance to shine through cigarette smoke. Though it takes place in a contained amount of time The Lady has reasons to change wigs and outfits and transform her look throughout. And even the car she steals has flair.
As enjoyable as STRANGE DARLING is as an exercise in style, it ends up being most memorable as an acting showcase. Both main characters reveal more dimensions over time, the actors have to go to strange places mentally and physically, and they’re just fun to watch. I can’t really get into the meat of it without revealing some stuff so the rest of this review will be a
HEAVY DUTY ALL-OUT SPOILER ATTACK
Yeah, you could say there’s a twist in the movie, and I’ve seen people complain that they saw it coming. But it’s not some “I see dead people” type business, I believe it happens in the first half, and it’s not as much a reveal as it is a confirmation. It’s implicit in the method of storytelling that we should wonder about what context we’re missing, and the little things that seem out of place make us question our assumptions. So it’s not just you, friend, it’s most people watching the movie who have to wonder is it possible that she’s the serial killer and not him? And then the movie’s job is to convince us of why that works with what we’re seeing, why it wasn’t a lie to call him “The Demon” on the opening credits, etc.
Once the cat is out of the bag that she drugged and mutilated him after a night of S&M, but he shot her and has been chasing her, that’s when it gets more fun. We change our allegiance as viewers, but not entirely, I think. To me it feels less like rooting for one party than just stepping back and watching how a pre-ordained catastrophe unfolds, in accordance with the pseudo-true-crime format.
At least one chapter is non-linear even within itself. The most fucked up part of the movie is when it shows him strangling and threatening her before revealing that she specifically instructed him to do that. Then she’s cruel enough to fuck with him by pretending for a minute like he was out of line. Obviously this is a movie that hopes to make us uncomfortable, and it sure worked on me. I don’t think topics should be off limits in fiction, but provocations about consent, implications about her “leading him on” or lying about sexual assault always make me worry about playing into myths used to justify men’s mistreatment of women. What won me over was thinking about what she said in the car about how many women would love to be able to have casual sex but they have to worry about if a guy is going to kill them. He says he never thought about that. And I think what the movie is doing is creating a boogey woman that would make it so men do have to think about that. Be careful who you take home from the bar, guys. You never know, she could be the Electric Lady.
She’s an unequivocally evil or at least psychotic person (maybe sometimes a little tragic), but he’s kind of a mystery. He’s a victim, but is he a good guy? We can justify chasing after and trying to kill her after what she did to him and revealed who she is. He’s a cop, too, so it’s not even a vigilante action. But you have to ask why he doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t get any help until after he’s cornered her, then calls a specific cop he knows and doesn’t say “I found the Electric Lady!,” he says he got himself into some trouble. So this is a cover up of the cocaine he used, maybe of cheating on his wife. He’s not on the up and up, and that makes it messier, more interesting.
But as interesting as I find The Demon, The Lady is the supernova blasting through this whole movie, just a fascinating character to watch and a for-the-record-books performance by an actor I’ve dug for a long time but still didn’t know could go this hard. Back in 2015 I really liked Fitzgerald as the lead in Scream: the tv series (though I only saw the first season). Then she surprised me in the little-known Lucky McKee thriller BLOOD MONEY, a good complicated asshole performance as the bad influence among a group of friends who decide to take a bag of money they find during a hike. She had a more straightforward (but tough and hot) role in the first season of Reacher, and then a showy part in Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher. This role has shades of what she did in BLOOD MONEY and Usher but gives her even more to chew on, bite off, cough up, etc. She gets to move between operatic wickedness, authentic vulnerable humanity, and everything in between. All the way up and down the FM dial.
What STRANGE DARLING shares with PEARL is a female psychopath who’s an absolute mess, who we follow so intimately that we feel like we’re starting to get her. She’s not nearly as likable as Pearl, and more sadistic, but her life is just such a thrilling trainwreck of poor choices and flamboyant mayhem. And it’s got some of that PSYCHO trick where we watch her problem solving long enough we might catch ourselves accidentally wanting her to succeed, even though we’ve been told she won’t.
Even if I had hang ups about story scrambling and film bragging I think this is one of those characters and performances that just jumps out of the screen, making all that barely relevant. It’s a good movie, but she’s a triumph all on her own.
September 4th, 2024 at 4:36 pm
I haven’t seen this yet, not sure if I’m going to. But I gotta admit, I’m sorry, I’m one of the people I guess you’re annoyed by, because if I saw a movie that began with “FILMED ENTIRELY ON 35MM FILM” and then when it gets to the title it’s “STRANGE DARLING – A Thriller In 6 Chapters,” I wouldn’t have your reaction. I wouldn’t think “Oh, okay. Six chapters. Got it. Thanks for the heads up,” I’d make the jerk off motion and I would most likely turn it off if I was watching it by myself, I would only continue if I was watching it with company because I wouldn’t want to make that executive decision for everyone in the room.