After a season of big blockbusters and gripping genre offerings, JT Mollner’s Strange Darling brins an intriguing and explosive full stop to summer 2024. Even amidst the likes of Longlegs and Cuckoo, Mollner’s latest is the quiet underdog, arriving with a host of rave reviews from its limited but lauded cinematic release.
Kicking off with an ode to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Strange Darling reveals its premise in slow opening scrawl hinting at a horrifying murder spree committed by one of America’s worst serial killers. From there we’re introduced to Willa Fitzgerald’s terminally distraught but superbly savvy ‘The Lady’ who is being ruthlessly pursued by a viciously focused Kyle Gallner, here playing ‘The Demon’.
From there the film yo-yo’s between 6 chapters, cheekily throwing chronology to the wind in order to keep its narrative cards close to the chest. It’s a brave move, out-of-synch chronology can be a twisty self-indulgent way to over-complicate a dull affair but in Mollner’s hands it’s a finely tuned method of building tension and landing some absolutely exquisite reveals. For a cat and mouse thriller, Strange Darling operates beyond its brief, turning something potentially simple, but wildly entertaining, into a kind of cerebral pulp artifact. It’s got weight to it, a heft and mischievous twinkle that you could trace right back to Hitchcock.
That weight doesn’t just come from twists, turns, and pulpy accoutrements, Mollner’s film is as gorgeous as it is visceral, as action packed as it is insidiously tense. It’s a perfectly balanced film that never gives up one thing for the other. Each act offers itself almost as a short film, a vignette into this nuts story. The lurid colouring, stark primary colours over choice sequences, helps separate those sequences and underline switches in tone or mood.
It’s this choice use of colour that adds, often intoxicating, visual flare to an already vibrant affair. In terms of influence, it’s got notes of so many things that make it feel entirely unique. There’s the dangerous sexuality of DePalma, the grindhouse structure of Tarantino, nods to numerous horror influences from its Texas Chainsaw Massacre style opening scrawl to notes of Switchblade Romance and the gritty nihilistic excess of New French Extremity. All of it blended with Americana and a dark sense of humour.
Mollner’s Strange Darling is an absolute blast; seductive, exhilarating, grizzly, and best seen with little-to-no preconceived notions as to what the fuck is going on. In a year crammed with fantastic genre performances, it’s astounding that Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner have nipped in at the last moment to deliver two of the finest in 2024.
4/5
Scott Clark
Dir. JT Mollner
Stars. Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr.
