Written And Directed by JT Mollner
The Lady: "Are you a serial killer?"
This might be one of the most unusual films to be released in the last month. It's like a bad hook up meets a horror show meets cat and mouse. It doesn't help that both main characters are as dangerous as each other.
Taking a structure of six chapters and an epilogue, this unusual movie then added to its own strangeness by telling the story more or less out of order. It did make things a little bit confusing to begin with but pay enough attention and you do catch on to things between the messy pair.
Yes, our pairing are deemed names. Instead you've got the Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) and the Demon (Kyle Gallner). At the start of this movie the Lady was fleeing the Demon, in fear of her life. Then we jumped back to their first meeting where things were cordial between the lovers.
They were in a car, sizing each other up and the Lady made it clear that she couldn't date a serial killer and that she was into rough sex. The Demon assured her of the former and although reluctant, he did cater to the latter request. In fact he might have catered a bit too well in that regard.
As for the serial killer plot, I'll give the movie props because it was the Lady who turned out to be a serial killer named The Electric Lady. In her attempts to get away from the Demon (actually a detective), she added to her body count with unfortunate farm couple Frederick (Ed Begley Jr) and Genevieve (Barbara Hershey) getting caught in her crossfire.
There's a decent battle of wits between the Demon and the Lady but only one of them emerged as the victor in their chaotic game. The movie does end on a rather bittersweet note for the winner as their victory was rather short lived.
- The chapters are as follows - Will You Help Me? Please? (3), Here Kitty, Kitty (5), Mister Snuffle (1), The Mountain People (4), Do You Party? (2), Who's Gary Gilmore? (6) and The Electric Lady (epilogue).
- Giovanni Ribisi made his debut as a feature film cinematographer with this movie.
- Standout music: Z Berg's Into The Night and Love Hurts.
- Chronology: The movie's set in Oregan for its duration.
I'll admit that I wasn't sure about Strange Darling at first. I thought it had interesting ideas but the execution seemed a bit muddled, so I left it for a bit to think on it. It's still a bit muddled but the leading performances from Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner were definitely on point. It's an interesting movie but might not be for everyone.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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