Strange Darling--My Take On The Movie With Spoilers



Plot: A one night stand turns into a murderous hunt.

Strange Darling is a strange movie. You'll either like it or find it the most boring movie.

Strange Darling is not told in a linear pattern, which is why it gets a little hard to get into. But keep going on, and a couple more minutes in, you'll start to feel the first threads of interest.

Strange Darling is different only because of the way the story is told. Otherwise, it is a pretty generic serial killer tale with a very obvious twist.

The movie is told like a novel, but just like a potential buyer thumbs through the pages to see if the book is worth it, the movie also starts from some other act and then eventually makes it way to the first chapter and then some other chapter before the epilogue.

At least the epilogue is where it should be.

STRANGE DARLING Movie Plot


The movie opens with informing us about a serial killer who was at large during the period of 2018 and 2020.

We see a woman running in slow motion while music plays. The scene is agonisingly slow, but stay on.

We then see the woman, referred to as The Lady, being pursued by a man, referred to as The Demon, in a car.

By the way, this is Chapter 3. But I want to see from the beginning, you'll say. Well, tough luck.

The Demon eventually stops the car, takes out his gun, and shoots at the car. The Lady manages to duck in time, but the car goes flying and turns over. The Demon approaches the car, but The Lady manages to escape into the woods.

She is back to running and hides behind a tree. She uses a bottle of alcohol to drink from then uses the rest over the side of the head. Apparently, she has a wound where most of her ear is gone.

As he nears, she rushes out and runs towards a house. The door opens, and it's an elderly couple: Frederick and Genevieve. The lady asks for help

We skip to Chapter 5. But what happened to the couple? Why can't I see Chapter 4?

Skipping chapters is frustrating rather than a neat trick to keep the interest and suspense going.

Anyway, The Lady is now in a dark space. She uses a lighter, and we wonder if she's in a box.

The Demon comes to the house and looks around. Genevieve is nowhere to be seen. Frederick is lying dead on the kitchen  floor.

 

 The Demon keeps looking around and sees frozen chicken outside in the garden. He makes a clever deduction and goes to find the freezer chest.
So, The Lady wasn't in a box but a freezer. The Demon shoots at the freezer, and The Lady yelps when she is injured.

And now we finally get to see Chapter 1.

The Lady has red hair and is seen in a car with the Demon. They are smoking and drinking and just generally talking. The Lady then asks him if he's a serial killer. He laughs it off.

They decide to get a room. The Lady is all tied up while the Demon is making out. Then he frees her and they talk before it turns intimate again. The Lady refuses to go further so the Demon handcuffs her again and tries to have his way, but when she refuses again, he chokes her. She starts to panic and says Mr Snuffleupagus. The Demons stops.

In a flashback we see that the Lady is into rough intimacy and so is the Demon. She instructs him to not back away even if she says no, unless she uses the safe word.

The Demon apologizes and lets her go free. The Lady laughs, saying she did enjoy herself.

Next up is Chapter Four. This time the focus is on Frederick and Genevieve. The elderly couple are enjoying each other's company by playing jigsaw and making a messy breakfast.

Just then, there's a knock on the door, and it's the Lady asking for help. The couple help her as she warns them of being chased by a bad man.

They insist on helping her with her ear wound first. While Genevieve goes to get the first aid box, Frederick comforts the Lady by saying that he will call the police. The Lady pleads with him not to but he insists, thinking she's just scared.

Genevieve is getting bandages from the bathroom when she hears a noise. She goes in to check and spots her husband on the floor, lying in a pool of blood.

The Lady insists that she doesn't want to hurt her but that she does need some supplies to escape.

They hear a noise, and Genevieve runs away in fear. The Lady realizes its the Demon and looks for a place to hide. Eventually, she finds the freezer, removes all the frozen chicken, and tosses it outside. That's what the Demon notices in Chapter 5 and deduces she's in the freezer.


And now it's Chapter 2. At this point, the chapter jumps are getting annoying. But you may become a little interested to see where this is all going.


In Chapter 2, The Lady is teasing The Demon by bringing him to the edge before backing off. The Demon is getting frustrated until the The Lady suggests they take illegal substances to relax. She is clearly dropping something else on the plain surface and making it look innocent. The Demon snorts it and begins to lose control of himself. The Lady tells him that she has given him ketamine.
While he's on his back, she straddles him and carves the letters EL on his chest, admitting that she's the serial killer known as Electric Lady.

She takes his wallet and goes into the bathroom to smoke some more. There is a lot of smoking in the movie. It's almost as if the tobacco industry has invested in the movie.

She removes her red hair wig and goes through his wallet. That's when she finds out that the Demon is a police officer. She tosses the wallet in the dustbin and gets out. She decides to kill him and straddles him when he suddenly shoots her.

He had the gun on his leg all along. That's how the Lady had her ear blown off.

The Lady runs out and complains to another guest about the man she's with having a gun. The guest, an older man, says that he has a gun as well. The Lady keeps running until she makes it to a clinic.

The woman there wants to call for help, and since the Lady doesn't want the police involved, she stabs the woman. Then she turns to the woman's assistant who didn't want to get involved in the first place. The Lady demands she gives her tye car keys. The assistant does so. She then asks for her clothes.

So that's how the Lady ended up in a car that didn't belong to her and in clothes that belonged to the assistant.

Now it is time for Chapter Six.

So, The Lady was shot in the shoulder and now the Demon is confronting her.
The Lady says she wanted to live the life of a famous serial killer, Gary Gilmore, and wanted to die like him.

Handcuffed to the freezer, she tearfully tells the Demon how, for the first time, she had started to develop actual feelings for someone.

The Demon manages to call for backup and introduces himself as R.C. He then goes to the Lady, but she's ready with the spray can she had taken from the elderly couple.

As he staggers away, she grabs him and bites him on the neck, hard enough to remove a large chuck of flesh. His jugular is cut, and so blood pours out of him. He falls to the floor and dies.

The Lady manages to pull him towards her and takes out the gun from his hiding spot in the leg.

The backup arrive and the Lady hides the gun. The woman cop goes to console the Lady who acts like she is traumatised. She has also lowered her pants. The woman helps to dress up again. The male cop is sceptical about what has happened. He wants to call it in, but the female cop tells him that their first duty should be to give medical help to the victim.

They take her out and put her in the car.

Once they're on the road, Genevieve runs to the cops and tells them of a woman who entered her house and killed her husband. She looks in the backseat and is shocked to see the Lady.

The Lady promptly shoots Genevieve.

The male cop has a told you so moment. The female cop is told to get out even as she tries to convince the Lady to give herself up.

They drive away, leaving the female cop behind.

STRANGE DARLING Ending Explained


The Lady tells the male cop to keep driving. He asks her why she kills and she tells him that she sees demons instead of people sometimes.

Then she kills the male cop when she has another flash.

She's on the road and flags down another car. It's another woman who goes out of the way to help her.

The Lady, is almost dying because of her wounds. The woman wants to call for help, and the Lady removes her gun. But the other woman has a gun too and acts first.

The Lady now slowly begins to die.

The woman makes a call, admitting to shooting a woman who pulled a gun on her first.

The Lady gasps for breath and slowly dies.

The scene is painfully long, but the movie finally ends!

Phew!

Final Thoughts About The Movie


Strange Darling appears to be more about the woman killing men who she sees as demons. Her past trauma may be the reason why she loathes men, but that is never fully explored. We must pick up on her behaviour patterns to understand why she isn't comfortable with intimacy but is into being used in a rough manner.

She also shows sympathy to women, further demonstrating that perhaps she was abused by men before causing her violent behavior towards them.

That really doesn't make her Strange but rather violent.

Quick Movie Review


Strange Darling is a serial killer story told in a non-linear pattern that gets frustrating after a while. While using a new concept of storytelling is seen as avant-garde, Strange Darling doesn't necessarily pass off as innovative.

It comes off as a movie that is all over the place and trying hard to be artistic.

After all, who would actually watch a movie or read a book in the manner Strange Darling has been presented?

The idea was there, but the end result is a complete letdown.

Scare Scale: 2.5/5


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