A man chasing a woman through the woods, shooting at her with a gun, and stalking through her a house doesn’t seem like the most groundbreaking concept for a horror film, but JT Mollner’s Strange Darling takes this well-worn intro and works absolute wonders. This is a film that is absolutely not what you think it’s going to be.
Strange Darling opens with The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) being pursued by The Demon (Kyle Gallner). Eventually The Lady ends up at the home of an old hippy couple, and…well…I don’t want to spoil it for you. You need to see this movie for yourself. I’m aware of how vague I’m being but trust me on this.
One of the risks this film takes (have a rather limited cast) pays off tremendously, because every single member of the cast absolutely delivers. Fitzgerald and Gallner are fantastic together. Theirs is a chemistry that crackles with tension, and no matter how fantastic things got I found myself believing that even in this far-fetched situation this is how people would act. Fitzgerald is a veritable chameleon, equally adept at whatever persona she needs to slip into in order to survive the ordeal at hand. Likewise, Gallner gives us another banger performance (shoutout to The Passenger and Mother May I) that will keep the viewer constantly guessing of his intentions and unsure of what is just around the corner. And the two of them together is something magical and oddly sweet; their initial encounter as two people just seeking connection for the night was strangely realistic and wholesome. Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr. are, predictably, absolutely charming as an aging hippy couple unfortunate enough to live in the path of the storm this movie throws us into.
The way this movie looks only adds to the feeling of a manic fever dream. The scene where Gallner and Fitzgerald first meet is lit with a neon blue hotel sign, a vaguely Lynchian touch that suggests some surreal nightmare ahead, and there’s another scene done in red that feels like something from an Argento film. Toss in a haunting rendition of Roy Orbison’s “Love Hurts” as a musical refrain completes the weird, not quite unwelcome feeling of this being a love story despite the violent nature of it, a dream that should be revolting but isn’t.
Strange Darling is a welcome breath of fresh air in the sub-genre of “woman in peril from maniac” horror films. Its unorthodox method of storytelling and inversion of tropes will leave the audience absolutely delighted, and it’s one of the most fun and interesting films I’ve seen in some time. It’s an exercise in restraint and sleight of hand, a brilliant example of lulling a viewer into thinking they have something figured out before yanking the rug out from under them.
