| Duration | 1h 37m |
| Ratings | UK: 18, USA: R, Denmark: 15 |
| Source of story | An original screenplay |
| Director | JT Moliner |
| Writers/Script | JT Moliner |
| Starring | Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr, Barbara Hershey, |
| Ratings | IMDb: 7.0/10 by 74k people. Rotten Tomatoes: 8/10. Review2view: 7.5/10. |
Plot of Strange Darling: The opening words describe the activities of a serial killer in America. The film is presented in six chapters, out of order. First, Chapter 3. A man in a pickup with a rifle is chasing a young woman wearing surgical scrubs driving a cheap car. He manages to shoot the car which crashes and the woman runs away through the woods arriving at a house occupied by a couple of old people. Then Chapter 5 where the man searches the house trying to find the young woman who is hidden in a freezer, unplugged. Chapter 1 shows us the two people named in the film as ‘the Lady’ and ‘the Demon’ sitting in his pickup discussing the possibility of getting a motel room and having sex. She outlines her requirement for sadomasochistic sex. This is followed by the other three chapters, 4,2 and 6, plus the epilogue.
Content: There is no nudity although ‘the Lady’ spends a lot of time in her underwear. The couple drink beer in the pickup and snort cocaine in the motel room. Once they get to it the man is prompted to strangle the woman who for a while is handcuffed to the bed head, and there is a lot of will they won’t they before they snort cocaine and move on to the next phase of the plot. In the house in the woods the old guy is killed and the man with the rifle searches for the woman, firing shots into any place where she might be hiding and eventually hitting her in the arm when he fires into a chest freezer. But nothing is quite as it seems.
A View: The critics loved this outing but despite its very moderate production cost it is doubtful whether it made any money. No matter how wonderful the film you still need publicity and in some countries this is an adults only outing. Well, you can see why. It is difficult to say much about it without revealing what is an extremely clever twist, but if you fancy a slightly different sort of movie it is worth your time. But possibly don’t watch it with your granny.
Fun Fact: The cinematographer was actor Giovanni Ribisi, fulfilling that role for the first time.
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