The Reel Review
A sexual encounter involving sadomasochistic role play at a motel in a remote, wooded stretch of rural Oregon escalates, fueling a suspenseful killing rampage where almost nothing is what it initially seems. Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner star in this pulse-pounding horror/crime thriller.
Opening with Gallner in pursuit of a bloodied Fitzgerald, writer/director JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels) cleverly tells his six chapter, Tarantino-esque story out of order to hide some big twists and play with the viewer’s perceptions, assumptions and inherent biases. It’s a jigsaw puzzle approach that works, at least for the first hour. A chilling, ominous score heightens the suspense, and Fitzgerald (Reacher) and Gallner (Smile, The Passenger) each give such riveting, career defining performances, that by the time we are introduced to a terrific Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr. as the eccentric, sasquatch-obsessed, hippy doomsday preppers we truly don’t know whether they are friend or foe.
Shot in 35 mm, actor-and-now-cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi gives the violence a distinctly up-close, 1970s vibe, despite the story being set in 2020. There is a LOT of blood and, in one hilariously gross scene, even more butter. (Yes, butter.) Once the biggest reveal occurs, the third act sputters into more predictable terrain, more frustratingly ridiculous than terrifying, but even so, Strange Darling is an impressive mind-bending thriller and breakout moment for those who made it.
REEL FACTS
• Vintage film stock connoisseur JT Mollner is the heir to the Freakling Brothers seasonal haunted houses in his hometown of Las Vegas. His next screenplay is The Long Walk, a dystopian horror based on the 1979 Stephen King novel currently filming in Winnipeg, Canada.
• Nashville native Willa Fitzgerald is best known for her appearances in MTV’s horror series Scream, the Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, and season one of the Amazon crime series Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson.
• Kyle Gallner, whose screen credits include The Passenger, Smile and Scream, can next be seen in Smile 2. which hits theaters in October 2024.
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