Film: Strange Darling
Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey
Director: JT Mollner
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 96 min

A serial-killer movie about a lesser known criminal’s tail-ending murder spree gets documented in this colorful and strangely gorgeous, lurid, over-the-top work. The form is compelling enough to take you in with its hyphenated jumbled-up presentation of what went on at that time. Writer-director JT Mollner crafts a clever genre subverting thriller grandly assisted by striking performances from Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner.

A sophomore effort of writer/director JT Mollner, ‘Strange Darling’ uses a non-chronological non-conformative gendered dynamic to tell the story of the final killings of a purported (real life) serial killer in rural Oregon. The narrative is divided into six chapters but the story begins with Chapter 3, and later, proceeds to go back and forth before eventually concluding with Chapter 6.