One night stand gone wrong.
If your mind is still reeling from recalling “Blink Twice," prepare to squirm with “Strange Darling.” “Blink Twice” makes you challenge reality; “Strange Darling” will make you question assumptions. These back-to-back, gendered horror thrillers will linger longer in your mind after you leave the theater.
A man (Kyle Gallner) and a woman (Wilia Fitzgerald) meet at a bar and decide to hook up at a hotel. The man is simply called the Demon, and the woman the Lady. Alcohol, cigar and cocaine are involved. What could go wrong mixing these things and being impaired with a stranger? Especially if that stranger may be a serial killer. Fitzgerald is a fierce force and Gallner goes for broke.
“Strange Darling” sounds straightforward... except it's not. The story is unfurling in six chapters, told out of order. The opening scenes start with chapter 3, right in the middle. A bloodied Lady is out on the run and hiding in the woods, hunted by a gun-totting Demon. Scared and screaming, she's able to narrowly escape and runs into a farmhouse in a field, occupied by an elderly couple.
The story lurches forward a couple chapters, showing the Demon closing in on the Lady in the house, but then it rewinds to the very beginning before everything happens, and then skipping chapters ahead to show what happens in the house. Then it regresses and progresses again. While this non-linear, sectioned storytelling method may look like a gimmick, surprisingly, it's electrifyingly executed that it strangely works on all levels.
The cinematography is a darling. Bright pops of red for blood, hair, car, scrub and shoes. Bathed in neon-lit blue for nighttime rendezvous in the car.
Slashing and shooting are rapid and sharp. Violent and vicious, even innocent people fall into victims in this predator-and-prey game. To tell more would be a disservice; going in blind is best.
Strangely shocking and deeply deranged, “Strange Darling” sublimely subverts expectations. The story tantalizingly turns on its bloody head and continues to tensely twist itself, keeping you guessing until the last drop.