Strange Darling

Strange Darling is a 2023 American thriller film written and directed by JT Mollner and starring Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, and Ed Begley Jr. Set in rural Oregon, the film focuses on a man and woman who engage in a one-night stand that devolves into a cat-and-mouse game of murder. It is divided into six narrative chapters arranged in nonlinear order, and presented as a dramatization of the pinnacle of a serial killer's years-long murder spree in the Western United States.

Strange Darling
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	JT Mollner
Written by	JT Mollner
Produced by	Bill Block Steve Schneider Roy Lee Giovanni Ribisi
Starring	Willa Fitzgerald Kyle Gallner Barbara Hershey Ed Begley Jr.
Cinematography	Giovanni Ribisi
Edited by	Christopher Robin Bell
Music by	Craig DeLeon
Production companies	Miramax Spooky Pictures
Distributed by	Magenta Light Studios
Release dates	September 22, 2023 (2023-09-22) (Fantastic Fest) August 23, 2024 (2024-08-23) (United States)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4 million
Box office	$1.9 million

Strange Darling was shot on 35 mm film on location in Oregon in the summer of 2022 by Giovanni Ribisi, marking his debut as a cinematographer. It premiered at the 2023 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 23, 2024, by Magenta Light Studios. It has received acclaim from critics.

Plot

The film is presented in six chapters and an epilogue, arranged in a nonlinear fashion, outlining the final crimes of a prolific serial killer:

Chapter 3 (“Can You Help Me? Please?"): A bleeding woman (“the Lady”) is pursued on a rural stretch of road in Oregon by a man (“the Demon”). He fires at her vehicle, causing her to crash. She then runs through the forest, stumbling upon a rural farmhouse. She knocks on the door and begs for help from the couple living inside before losing consciousness.

Chapter 5 (“Here, Kitty, Kitty...”): The Demon searches the farmhouse for the Lady while brandishing a rifle. He eventually finds her hiding in a chest freezer and shoots her.

Chapter 1 (“Mister Snuffle”): The Demon and the Lady meet for a one-night stand at a remote motel. The Lady is anxious about her safety, and asks the Demon to promise he is not a killer. They engage in rough BDSM roleplay in which the Demon handcuffs and chokes the Lady, until she uses a safe word, causing him to stop. They take a quick break, during which the Lady urges the Demon to be more assertive and dominating in the roleplay, before resuming.

Chapter 4 (“The Mountain People”): An eccentric doomsday prepper couple, Frederick and Genevieve, are startled when the Lady appears on their doorstep and asks for help. They take her in and offer her food and medicine. Frederick insists on calling the police, but the Lady stabs him to death before he can do so. Genevieve flees into the woods as the Demon arrives, and the Lady hides from him in a chest freezer.

Chapter 2 (“Do You Like to Party?”): The Lady spurns the Demon’s sexual advances and suggests that they take cocaine before progressing further. However, she secretly doses him with ketamine to incapacitate him, before carving the initials E.L. into his chest with a knife. She then goes through the Demon’s wallet and discovers he is a police officer; when she returns to kill him with the knife, he shoots her in the ear with his concealed pistol. She flees the scene, killing a motel clerk before stealing the car and clothes of another employee. The Demon takes a hit of cocaine to regain his senses and pursue her in his car.

Chapter 6 (“Who’s Gary Gilmore?”): The Demon handcuffs the Lady to the chest freezer and calls two of his police partners to the scene. The Lady confesses that she wishes to die like Gary Gilmore, and admits that she briefly believed she loved the Demon during their sexual encounter. She then sprays the Demon with bear spray and bites into his jugular vein, causing him to bleed out. When the Demon’s two partners (Gale and Pete) arrive, the Lady plays the victim, and the officers debate what to do. They ultimately decide to take her to their vehicle and drive her to find medical help. They encounter a frantic Genevieve on the road, and the Lady shoots her in the head; she then orders Gale out of the car and tells Pete to keep driving.

Epilogue ("The Electric Lady"): The Lady orders Pete to stop the car as she considers what to do next. He asks her why she committed so many crimes as the notorious serial killer “the Electric Lady”; she says that sometimes she doesn’t see people, only devils. She shoots and kills Pete before continuing on foot. A female driver comes across her and offers her a ride into town; when the Lady draws her pistol, the woman does the same, fatally shooting the Lady. The driver then calls the police and drives into town as the Lady succumbs to her wounds in the passenger seat.

Cast

• Willa Fitzgerald as the Lady
• Kyle Gallner as the Demon
• Barbara Hershey as Genevieve
• Ed Begley Jr. as Frederick
• Madisen Beaty as Gale
• Bianca Santos as Tanya
• Steven Michael Quezada as Pete
• Sheri Foster as the Driver
• Jason Patric as True Crime Narrator (voice)
• Giovanni Ribisi as Art Pallone (voice)

Production

Development

Writer-director JT Mollner wrote the screenplay for Strange Darling over several months, based on a visual idea he developed for the opening in which a "final girl" runs toward the camera in slow motion. Elaborating on the concept, Mollner stated: "I was drawn to the image of this final girl running through the woods. And I kept seeing that, and I knew it was a trope, except the way I saw it was there was dressing on the image that I saw, that that made it unique to me, the scrubs and the music and the frame rate, the slow motion I wanted to shoot, and the lens. I had this very stylized image in my head, but I wanted to make sure, beyond just style, there was some story here, or a unique side of a character we could show that we hadn't seen in other films, not just horror films, but films about people who are being pursued or in distress."

Filming

Miramax announced that filming on the project was underway in the Portland, Oregon area in the summer of 2022 with Mollner working from his own script to direct a cast led by Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr.. Bill Block, Steve Schneider and Roy Lee acted as producers on the project. The film was shot entirely on 35 mm film by the director of photography, actor Giovanni Ribisi, who also has a cameo in the film. Some photography took place in the Mount Hood National Forest.

Release

The film had its world premiere on September 22, 2023, at Fantastic Fest held in Austin, Texas. In March 2024, Magenta Light Studios acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.

An early access screening took place at select U.S. theaters on August 14, 2024, followed by an exclusive live-streamed Q&A session from the AMC Lincoln Square 13 Theater with writer-director Mollner, cinematographer Ribisi, and star Fitzgerald, moderated by Carla Gugino. The film opened in Australia on August 22, 2024, followed by a limited U.S. theatrical release on 1,133 screens on August 23, 2024.

Reception

Box office

The film earned $442,523 at the U.S. box office on its opening day. It would go on to make $1,142,129 at the U.S. box office during its opening weekend, in addition to $16,275 in Australia. As of August 30, 2024, the film had grossed a total of $1,861,141 worldwide.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 104 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "JT Mollner delivers a thrillingly unexpected and electric ride with two breakout performances by Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner in Strange Darling." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Thomas Floyd of The Washington Post praised the film's performances and Ribisi's cinematography, describing it as a "sleek thriller" and "a parable about preying on female trust and vulnerability." Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times similarly praised the film, writing: "Playing out in six, ingeniously scrambled chapters, this headlong thriller transforms a simple cat-and-mouse premise—and maybe even a toxic love story—into an impertinent rebuke to genre clichés and our own preprogrammed assumptions." IndieWire's Alison Foreman awarded the film an A rating, concluding: "Electric and unforgettable, Strange Darling lives up to its maddening moniker. In a summer movie season that’s been middling at best, this is a must-see—a feat of filmmaking so extraordinary you’ll wonder if it could ever truly be spoiled."

Drew Tinnin of Dread Central praised the acting and cinematography, but criticized the film's narrative structure, noting that "[this] fever dream thrill ride overshoots at times, feeling overly cinematic and pseudo-intellectual. In trying to upend a straightforward narrative, the action gets undermined in moments when the film is trying to be a little too clever than it needs to be," negatively comparing it against the films of Quentin Tarantino.

External links

• Official website
• Strange Darling at IMDb