Current king of horror, Mike Flanagan has a quote on the poster saying: “Sublimely brilliant. You must go in blind.”
The opening scroll and voice-over tells us that this is a true story dramatisation of a serial killer’s final killings. The credits follow stating that Willa Fitzgerald plays ‘The Lady’ and Kyle Gallner is ‘The Demon’.
Willa Fitzgerald was recently in Mike Flanagan’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and is absolutely extraordinary in this film.

This is a thriller. That much is certain. The less you know about this film, the better. In reality, I feel like that for most films, my enjoyment is vastly improved the less I know about the plot for the most part. It’s almost impossible to experience that now with the over saturation of promotion. I think we can all agree that most trailers are far too long. The marketing team begging it far too much and thus spoiling a journey that could have been soooo much better.

Last month, I went to see the very disappointing ‘Maxxxine’. I was a huge fan of ‘X’ and absolutely loved ‘Pearl’ and I went in having been told by my podcast co-host that he hated it so my expectations were much lowered. The reason I’m telling you this was that before the film in the foyer there was a poster for ‘Strange Darling’, a film I had never heard of before and I read the Mike Flanagan quote and so when the trailer for Strange Darling before ‘Maxxxine’ came on I averted my eyes and blocked my ears with a “notlisteningnotlistening” energy.
I thought I had inadvertently glimpsed some images in the ‘Strange Darling’ trailer that gave too much away. I was mistaken. I have seen the trailer; it is below and gives little away.

The film is anchored with excellent performances from Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner and fabulous support from Ed Begley Jr, Barbara Hershey, Steven Michael Quezeda and Madisen Beaty.

As the credits rolled, it showed that Giovanni Ribisi had produced the film and as they scrolled further revealed that he was also the Director of Photography, and had a small cameo.
The film opens with a statement telling us that the film was shot in 35mm. It looks fantastic. The colours pop and the action scenes are visceral and kinetic.

Z Berg wrote and performed the soundtrack and a song that is featured heavily is Love Hurts featuring Keith Carradine who is Z Berg’s godfather IRL. Love Hurts is a cover of Emmy Lou Harris and Graham Parsons’ version from 1974 but was originally recorded by The Everly Brothers in 1960. Z Berg does a fantastic job with the soundtrack, her voice has a haunting, otherworldly feel to it and it perfectly adds to the tension the film evokes.

Director JT Mollner’s second feature film after his debut ‘Outlaws and Angels’ in 2016, here he creates an inventive, well written and directed film that subverts your expectations and gives you a fresh take on the serial killer film.

Go in blind…………