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Strange Darling opens with the declaration, “This film was entirely shot on 35mm film”, and the IMDB technical page bears this out, detailing the Kodak Vision3 50D 5203, Vision3 250D 5207, and Vision3 500T 5219, if you’re that way inclined.
Moving on, this is a serial killer movie, and to give a hint at some of the content, it’s broken into 6 chapters, but not chronologically, so starts with “3. Can You Help Me, Please?“, where an injured woman in a red outfit, known only as The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald – The Fall Of The House Of Usher), is running away from a man who’s chasing her – known as The Demon (Kyle Gallner – Smile), and knocking on a door to a house in the woods that she’s chanced upon.
Then it shifts to Chapter 5, “Here Kitty Kitty“, where she’s trapped inside somewhere, with the man coming after her, toting hier rifle and murmuring those words in the quotes.
What follows is probably best not described, since this is like a road movie where the story is told as the ‘action’ moves from place to place. I hadn’t seen the trailer before watching this, and I saw elsewhere that it’s a film best experienced by going in ‘blind’ to the story.
After one viewing, I definitely need to see it a second time, and was hoping to do so in its second week, but it’s disappeared after just that initial release period which is a shame. However, I will catch it again in some form, as it’s very intriguing and might even be better second time round.
However, it’s safe to say that it briefly uses Brian De Palma’s style split-screen in one scene, as well as a moment in a slightly wider 2.55:1 – for no apparent reason, so with additional black bars, and there’s the welcome pairing of Barbara Hershey (The Manor) and Ed Begley Jr (Lucky) as the home owners who our heroine inadvertently visits.
Finally, the chapters are in chronological order as follows, but you might want to leave this potential spoiler hidden until you’ve watched the film:
There’s also a post-credits scene which you can find out about below, in case you missed it.
Strange Darling is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date of December 2nd.
Check out the trailer below:
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 97 minutes
Release date: September 20th 2024
Studio: Icon Film Distribution
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (Anamorphic /i Scope, Anamorphic Atlas Scope), 2.55:1 (one scene)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 7/10
Director: JT Mollner
Producers: Bill Block, Chris Ivan Cevic, Roy Lee, Giovanni Ribisi, Steven Schneider
Screenplay: JT Mollner
Music: Craig DeLeon
Cast:
The Lady: Willa Fitzgerald
The Demon: Kyle Gallner
Genevieve: Barbara Hershey
Frederick: Ed Begley Jr
Pete: Steven Michael Quezada
Gale: Madisen Beaty
Tanya: Bianca A Santos
Libby: Denise Grayson
The Driver: Sheri Foster
Roughneck: Duke Mollner
Beth: Eugenia Kuzmina
True Crime Narrator: Jason Patric (voice)
Art Pallone: Giovanni Ribisi (voice)
Mitchell Mahoney: Robert Craighead (voice)
Man with Bare Buttocks: Evan Peterson
Steve: Andrew John Segal
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.