Review: Strange Darling – Boy chase girl
Directed by J.T. Mollner
Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr
6/10
There’s been so much done with slasher films, particularly focusing on the final girl trope, and Strange Darling at least manages to spin a new take on this tired old sub-genre. The way it presents its two central characters is a true subversion for horror fans, though it doesn’t end up following up on these subversions with anything interesting or captivating. Strange Darling is a movie that will keep you guessing, though you’ll likely be guessing right.
Told in five chapters (though not in order), we are plunged into the tale, seeing our strange darling (Willa Fitzgerald) being chased by her predator (Kyle Gallner), intent on killing her. We then travel back to the start, where they first met, as they flirt very provocatively with each other (for a very prolonged time) and then discuss how they could play out a deranged sex fantasy of bondage and sadomasochism. As we’ve seen, this sex play goes pear-shaped, but we are to see how exactly it got that way.
Given that the film is divided up into five chapters that are told out of order and from different perspectives, it’s not hard to predict why the film has a shuffled order and what story points it’s trying to hide. Not only do many of these plot revelations not come as a surprise, but they don’t add much thematic weight to the film.
There’s something interesting about the kind of film Strange Darling is, as it’s a unique and new take on the slasher genre because of the way it presents its characters in this story. Yet its freshness gets stale soon, as the film doesn’t take an interesting or engaging path with any of its story subversions.
As we get into the final act of the film, it has to chug along with a series of dumb moments by characters who you’d think would know better. The body count increases towards the end, mostly because of how careless characters have to act to make sure this story can continue for another fifteen minutes.
Strange Darling is something that could’ve worked better as a short film, as it’s solely reliant on its ‘surprising’ plot twists and turns, though there’s too much time between them to guess each one.
DAVID MORGAN-BROWN