Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr

Written and directed by JT Mollner

A woman (Willa Fitgerald) sprints through the wood pursued by The Demon (Kyle Gallner). As the pursuit continues, we see how they met and discover who they truly are.

JT Mollner’s insanely tight, precise horror movie offers you no excuses, pulls no  blows and demands your attention. Split into six chapters and an epilogue, it puts the onus on the viewer to pay attention and the two leads to carry the weight of the story, and the format, with minimal dialogue. Work like this is why you hire Kyle Gallner (who’s been on the other side of this story in the Smile franchise) and Willa Fitzgerald, unrecognisable from her clean cut turn in Reacher here. Both of them do stunning work here and the mid movie pivot (I hesitate to say twist) gives them both even more to work with and context for us.

Getting to that point is going to be a lot for some viewers. The movie is offhandedly brutal in every possible way and two early chapters deal with the sadomasochistic roleplay that serves as the meet cute for the movie’s leads in a manner that’s straightforward and increasingly disturbing to watch. Every character is untidy, often unpleasant and never to be trusted. Every frame is tense, either featuring or promising violence.

Strange Darling is the definition of a hard watch but it’s also a very good one. Mollner, Gallner and Fitzgerald find painful humanity in the characters. The deaths always matter. Violence is never glamourised, it’s just never restrained, and the ending is a bravura turn from Fitzgerald that mixes sadness and peace with all the blood on the floor.

Verdict: Strange Darling isn’t an easy movie. It is a very good one. If you’re a horror fan, this is definitely for you. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart