‘Strange Darling’ ★★★ 1⁄2 Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Steven Michael Quezada, Madison Beaty, Bianca Santos, Denise Grayson, Eugenia Kuzmina, Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey. Directed and written by JT Mollner; produced by Bill Block, Chris Ivan Cevic, Roy Lee and Giovanni Ribisi.
A Magenta Light Studios release. 96 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody content, sexual material, drug use and language).
At AMC Champaign 13 and Savoy 16 IMAX. When Stephen King refers to a film as “a clever masterpiece,” I can’t help but be a bit curious as to if he’s on to something or if this is just hyperbole wisely placed in the respective promotional materials. Such is the case with J.
T. Mollner’s “Strange Darling,” an independent thriller that has built strong world of mouth after being warmly received at a series of film festivals. Distributor Magenta Light Studios is so confident in it, they’re giving it a wide release, the first of their films to get one.
It’s a risk, to be sure, yet its low budget and the willingness of horror fans to take a chance on just about anything with a bit of gore ensures a core audience will take a chance on it. While I wouldn’t refer to Mollner’s film as a “masterpiece,” it is one of the cleverest films I’ve seen in sometime, taking one horror trope after another and turning them on their heads to great effect. Essentially a two-hander, the fierce approach by its two leads paired with the movie’s relentless pace.