‘The purist, most primal love can hit you like a wave…’
When you watch as many horror films as I do (I’m not saying I watch too many but I did recently endure the fifth entry in the Wrong Turn franchise), it’s extremely rare for something to genuinely surprise me. Strange Darling consistently walked me into my comfort zone, handed me my dressing gown and slippers and then punched me in the face. This is a film that kept surprising me right through to the end…
A first date between a couple credited only as The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) and The Demon (Kyle Gallner) descends into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree. I am now going to spoil the plot of this movie in the next paragraph so please stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens in the film Strange Darling.
As with that other recent horror success Barbarian, Strange Darling hits the viewer with the old bait and switch. The assumption, of course, is that it is the man who is the killer, but writer-director JT Mollner reveals to us about halfway through that The Lady is actually the beast here. The reveal is handled magnificently, I had no inkling that the film was going in that direction, and it’s exactly the kind of rugpull that makes me want to go back and watch the movie again now that I have a full grasp on what is actually going on. Willa Fitzgerald is an actor I know nothing about but she excels here in a role that is essentially two parts. She convinces as a helpless victim and also as a ruthless murderer aided by the non-linear storytelling device that also sets the film apart from other movies that have attempted to operate in this same arena.
If you watched the music video to ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy and thought to yourself, “I like this but I wish it was 97 minutes long” then this is probably the film for you. If you haven’t seen the music video to ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy then you should address that at the first available opportunity. And then watch Strange Darling.
