Director: JT Mollner
Writers: JT Mollner
Stars: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey
Synopsis: Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
There are a few rules before watching Strange Darling. First, avoid trailers, reviews (except this spoiler-free one), and all talk of the year’s best thriller. Second, I implore you to avoid all fluid intake one to two hours before showtime because you want to avoid taking unnecessary bathroom breaks and missing a moment of the year’s most inventive script.
And finally, after watching JT Mollner’s instant classic, you must talk to everyone about Strange Darling (while avoiding spoilers, you filthy cinephiles). Put it out there, tell family, friends, strangers, and even your local clergy because this movie is that good.
Mollner, best known for his first feature film, Outlaws and Angels, which was a remarkable sobering vision of the American West, borrows his love of 70s thrillers to create a taut horror thriller that is as ingenious as it is terrifying. Mollner brings an almost romantic appreciation of 70s horror thrillers, with 90s nonlinear storytelling through a feminist lens that will turn heads as a filmmaker to watch.
To avoid spoilers, I won’t go much into the film. However, his sophomore feature film effort is described as “a cat-and-mouse thriller described as a dramatization of the last known months of a serial killer,” the experience is arresting, a real armrest grabber that won’t let go. Strange Darling masterfully blends classic horror thriller filmmaking’s gritty realism and psychological depth with modern visual techniques.
The film starts with a gripping opening scene. Reacher’s Willa Fitzgerald plays “The Lady,” a terrified young woman being chased down a backwoods interstate by “The Demon” (Smile’s Kyle Gallner). In a scene that pays homage to Steven Spielberg’s classic television film Duel (1971), Gallner’s demon bears down on Fitzgerald’s character in her tiny red Pinto with his gigantic dark pickup truck.
As the stoic villain chases the understandably frightened victim down the road, you’ll notice the homage mentioned earlier. The real-time predator-and-prey chase scenes use soft, romantic lighting with an almost nebulous quality to create an unsettlingly beautiful atmosphere, reminiscent of the decade that produced such horror thrillers as Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, even Jaws, and certainly Carrie.
The scene immerses the viewer in an unfamiliar world and demands close attention to details that will eventually sneak up on you. This is the brilliance of Mollner’s script, which creates a nearly perfect atmosphere—a “chillscape,” if you will—that draws the viewer in. In contrast, cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi develops a sharp, high-contrast look during flashbacks, which explains how we arrived on that desolate road that provides a contemporary look and feel.
This approach grounds the narrative, enhances the storytelling shifts, and adds emotional complexity, incorporating modern themes about feminism and control. This is where you begin to appreciate Strange Darling’s well-earned “creative” praise. The script is one of the most innovative horror tales in recent memory. Told in five chapters, with an additional epilogue, Mollner keeps the viewer on edge by quickly cutting back and forth between chapters to subvert the audience’s expectations.
However, none of this would be possible without a wickedly good—and at times jaw-dropping—performance from Willa Fitzgerald. Her turn is electric, transforming a one-note character into an awe-inspiring complex characterization because of internal pain you cannot see coming. One that drives the story with a closing sequence that offers a devastating emotional impact.
We are currently living in the golden age of modern horror storytelling. From this year’s Longlegs and Trap to recent classics like Barbarian, Heredity, and Midsommar to real innovators like It Follows, Strange Darling is as good as, or better than, those films, offering a chilling escape from the year’s searing hot summer heatwave.
