Asesino serial

This movie is a well-engineered crafty quasi-erotic thriller that keeps you engaged until the very end. While a low budget movie, there are quite a few dramatic and super dramatic plot points that have you wondering what they might have done with a conventional robust budget.

The movie is presented in six chapters - and I will admit I'm generally not a fan of "chapters" - and initially I found this to be a distraction.. but as the movie moved along you realize the plot device was quite strategic.

The movie is a stark reminder why you should see thrillers as soon as they come out because it's hard to imagine that many well-intentioned reviewers won't spoil the movie simply in the title of their review.

I will certainly credit the director for making a thrilling memorable movie from very little resources to work with.

And the actress at the center of the movie (Willa Fitzgerald) gives a masterful performance.

Strange Darling is a crazy film that will keep you guessing from beginning to end. You should definitely go in blind with this one to get the best experience and the most enjoyment out of it. Kyle Gallner was great in this movie. I always enjoy his work, I think he's one of the more underrated actors out there. Willa Fitzgerald steals the film with a show-stopping performance. JT Mollner did a fantastic job writing and directing, I'll look forward to seeing what he does next. This is a great original thriller that I would recommend. You will not be bored for one second. Not everything is what it seems.

I really like Willa Fitzgerald, she was so great as deputy Roscoe in the first season (2022) of "Reacher". ("Don't worry, I won't kick your a$$, unless you make me.") Here she is just The Lady. She is the strong point, she makes this movie worth watching.

Aside from that I can't understand why this movie has even an average of 7 rating. That seems high when you think about what the movie really is. The opening states something about a serial killer in 2018 through 2022. Then the story we see has a man and woman in a car chase through the rural forests of Oregon (we can see Mt. Hood in the distance), he shoots, the car overturns, she in her bright red clothes runs. We have no idea why this is happening and, frankly, it reminded me in quality of the home movies I made in the 1980s with a portable VCR where kids were in a bike chase.

So, what they did is edit the film to depict it in six chapters, but we are shown them out of order. We eventually see why the woman is wearing what she is and why the man is chasing her.

Ultimately the whole movie, while it has some interesting moments, just isn't very entertaining nor very memorable.

I could not recommend it to anyone.

Strange Darling is a taut, blood-slicked little firecracker of a film that grabs you by the throat early and rarely loosens its grip. JT Mollner crafts a psychological thriller that wears its grindhouse roots proudly but isn't content to just wallow in genre tropes. It's unpredictable, deeply twisted, and often ferociously uncomfortable. From the first few minutes, it dares you to make assumptions, then punishes you for doing so.

The film lives or dies by its two leads, and thankfully, both are more than up to the task. Willa Fitzgerald delivers a performance that's equal parts raw vulnerability and ruthless ferocity. There's a lived-in desperation behind her eyes that makes even her quietest moments electric. Opposite her, Kyle Gallner turns in a chilling portrayal that dances along the edge of caricature without ever tipping over. He's unhinged, magnetic, and at times genuinely terrifying. The chemistry between them isn't romantic, but volatile, like a match being struck in a gas-filled room.

Mollner shoots the hell out of this story. The visuals are gritty and evocative, with a color palette that swings between sun-drenched Americana and sickly, blood-tinged dread. The cinematography embraces natural light and claustrophobic framing to enhance the feeling of being trapped in a situation spiraling out of control. There's a stylized quality to the violence here, but it never feels gratuitous. Instead, it's abrupt, messy, and emotionally disorienting. Mollner doesn't hold your hand or slow things down to let you catch your breath; he wants you off-balance, questioning every character's motive and morality.

That said, the film isn't flawless. Its nonlinear structure, while conceptually clever, sometimes feels more like a gimmick than a necessity. Jumping back and forth in time adds tension but also undercuts momentum at critical moments. The final reveal, while satisfying in its own right, leans a bit too hard into the gotcha twist. It's effective, sure, but not as shocking as the film seems to think it is. Some viewers will absolutely eat it up, while others might roll their eyes.

Despite its imperfections, Strange Darling is a wild, blood-soaked ride that sticks with you. It's the kind of movie that makes you squirm, yell at the screen, and then immediately want to rewatch it just to catch everything you missed. It's not reinventing the wheel, but it doesn't need to; it sharpens the edges of that wheel and runs it over you.

Although it is a thrilling film in parts, somewhat sagging, it was woefully let down by the incredible and bizarre stupidity of the characters.

If everyone was rational the film would have ended in 10 minutes, but no absurdity had to get a look in.

I loved the non linear story telling. Your mind is taken through a tense drama of cat and mouse, and then back and forth with different chapters, filling in more detail as you build a picture of whole drama.

But, a big but, and this is why everyone complains the golden age of cinema is well and truly over. To make the story work the film needed a tonne of stupidity and suspension of disbelief. This lets the film down badly to the extent you leave the cinema thinking it was all rubbish.

I think the film will end up at 6.7 (it started off at 8 and at the time of writing it had fallen to 7.1). Another wannabe-clever film, soon to be forgotten.