A man and a woman have a thrilling and surprising cat-and-mouse chase in writer-director JT Mollner’s Strange Darling.
This review originally ran at CityOfGeek.com, with a few edits.
A young woman, obviously in distress, with disheveled clothes, running make-up, and blood welling from where her ear used to be, speeds down a wooded country road in a bright red 1978 Pinto. Tearing up behind her is a massive black truck. Behind the wheel is a determined, sweaty, and bloody man; rifle next to him on the seat. Thus begins Strange Darling, a speeding bullet of a brilliant second feature from writer-director JT Mollner. While it does have minutes to slow down a little, the film is mostly at a run, pulling the viewer behind with gleeful abandon.
Starting in media res can often be a cliché and lazy way to open a film. Strange Darling is neither cliched nor lazy in any way. Subtitled on screen as “A Thriller in Six Parts,” the jumbled method is imperative to how the film works. The viewer doesn’t only ask “How do these characters get to this point?” but “Why does Mollner choose to tell the story this way?” In this method, we remain active in the story. It’s easy to figure out that what we see at the start isn’t wholly the truth. Theories are created, altered, squashed, and built on in the viewer’s mind. Expectations are shifted, subverted, and twisted. It’s a smart script, full of subtleties, surprises, and brilliant motions. It would be easy for each turn to undo a previous bit of information or lessen the impact. But there are no cheats; it’s logically sound even as it all changes.
It helps to have two skillful actors on hand. Willa Fitzgerald is “The Woman”. She excelled as the icily brilliant younger Madeline Usher in the ensemble of House of Usher, but she shines as half of the front-and-center core duo. More than a mere victim or Final Girl, she commands attention. The other half is Kyle Gallner as “The Demon”. Gallner is no stranger to horror, either: as the lead in Haunting in Connecticut, and within the casts of Jennifer’s Body, one of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake teens, Red State, both Smile films, and others. But might I take a side trip to recommend with the highest regard the non-horror but incredible dark-comedy of suburban hellDinner in America? After you finish this review, jump to Hulu and watch it now. Ahem, back to the movie. Interestingly, both Fitzgerald and Gallner have met Ghostface: her in the Scream TV show, and he was an early victim in Scream V.
Both Fitzgerald and Gallner move deftly through all that is required of them with ease in fully committed work. Together, their chemistry is off the charts. They play off one another so well, a credit to them and Mollner in finessing complicated performances. While it’s a small film, mainly the two- they do come across various others. Most notably, stalwarts Ed Begley, Jr of Transylvania 6-5000 and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, and Barbara Hershey of The Entity and Insidious, as a hippie couple. As in everything Begley does, they are delightfully weird. They make a lot of their smaller parts.
Mollner builds a fascinating world around electric chemistry and twisty storytelling. Giovanni Ribisi is primarily known as an actor (if you don’t know his name, you’d recognize Ribisi from Avatar, Friends, or the “weasely little guy” in a ton of things), but he breaks in as director of photography (along with producing and providing a voice) for Strange Darling. Shot in 35mm, it has a deep 70s, near Grindhouse, look (heck, the film opens with a direct homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s opening). 2024 was a great year for soaking in the 70s: Cuckoo, Longlegs, Immaculate, The First Omen, and Late Night with the Devil all lean on the aesthetic of the era (with Alien: Romulus often feeling ripped directly from the world of the 1979 original). Both Cuckoo and Longlegs were also shot (and released limitedly) on 35mm, and I wish I could have caught Strange Darling in the format as well. The color and grain give depth to the Oregon wilderness. It’s a beautiful film, stocked with great shot choices. Like Cuckoo, this could easily have been set in 1978. I wonder why it isn’t.
I also appreciated a low-key soundtrack. The score from Craig DeLeon is thumping and immersive. But Z Berg’s songs (all original except a cover of “Love Hurts”) set the tone with a haunting ethereal sound reminiscent of Julee Cruise and Lana Del Ray. I’d buy the disc.
Low-budget, high-quality original horror films had a great 2024. The movies listed above, along with Oddity, In a Violent Nature, and I Saw the TV Glo, have made 2024 a banner year for genre fans. I’m glad to add Strange Darling to this cadre of quality.
JT Mollner’s Strange Darling is an electric buzz of a film, effortlessly creating a tense and shifting story, led by two strong performances and buffeted up by a great look and soundtrack. [for more JT Mollner goodness, check out 2025’s The Long Walk and my review for it. He wrote the flick]