Movie · 2024 · Horror, Thriller · 1h 37m · R · English
Curator score: 8.6/10 (67.6K ratings)
Love hurts.
Overview
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.6/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Metacritic: 80
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
JT Mollner
Production
Miramax, Spooky Pictures, Electric Lady Studios, Magenta Light Studios
Cast
Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Madisen Beaty, Bianca A. Santos, Steven Michael Quezada, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey, Denise Grayson, Eugenia Kuzmina, Duke Mollner, Sheri Foster, Andrew John Segal, Jason Patric, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Craighead, Evan Peterson
Where to watch
fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, nasty, formally playful thriller that leans hard on structure, performance, and escalating dread. It’s divisive by design, but if you like twisty cat-and-mouse stories with a mean streak and strong visual style, it delivers.
Best for
Viewers who like nonlinear thrillers and narrative reversals
Fans of tense, performance-driven horror
People who enjoy stylish indie genre films with a confrontational edge
Audiences looking for a date-night thriller that turns vicious fast
Skip if
You want straightforward plotting and clean answers
You dislike movies that feel self-consciously stylized
You’re sensitive to graphic violence, sexual menace, or abusive dynamics
You prefer horror that is more atmospheric than confrontational
Overview
Strange Darling is built like a trap: it keeps recontextualizing itself, then dares you to keep up. The movie’s biggest asset is how confidently it weaponizes structure, sound, and performance to turn a familiar setup into something slippery and mean. Willa Fitzgerald is the standout, carrying the film’s shifting power dynamics with a mix of vulnerability and ferocity that keeps the whole thing alive.
Worth noting
The film is also very aware of its own style, for better and worse. The 35mm sheen, neon palette, and chaptered storytelling give it a pulpy, retro charge, but the self-consciousness can read as smug if you’re not on its wavelength. Still, the craft is undeniable: it’s tense, nasty, and often genuinely surprising in the moment.
Bottom line
If you like your thrillers to be a little ugly, a little sexy, and a lot more interested in destabilizing expectations than in comforting you, this is worth the ride. If you need emotional clarity or a clean moral center, it may feel like a provocation more than a payoff.
Top Letterboxd reviews
K · 11548 likes
Shooting a movie on 35mm is cool. Announcing that you shot it on 35mm in an opening title card is deeply uncool.
Juhn Snaggletoof (2.5★) · 9255 likes
My audience was dead and indifferent during every scene UNTIL they used an entire stick of butter to cook 3 eggs, at which point people loudly lost their minds.
Isaac Feldberg (0.5★) · 8236 likes
Oh my god, you shot entirely on 35mm film? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Quentin Tarantino?
shan %ᵕ‿‿ᵕ% (1.5★) · 3184 likes
hey so this was insane!
overall I just hate when male filmmakers make their female characters evil manipulators who are hellbent on destroying men's lives and then pretend they're being feminist by doing so
this felt like it came from the pov of someone who thinks the me too movement started with good intentions and then "went too far" lmao
the scene when the two cops find the main character handcuffed to the freezer rubbed me the WRONG WAY
Kylo (4★) · 2963 likes
It may be too late to admit that I still don’t quite understand what 35mm is or how it’s supposed look.
1998 · Crime, Drama, Thriller · 2h 1m · R · Curator 8.0/10 (147.9K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, MGM Plus, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A tense spiral of bad decisions, suspicion, and moral collapse.
2000 · Mystery, Thriller · 1h 53m · R · Curator 9.1/10 (3.2M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
For its fractured structure and the way it makes the audience assemble the truth piece by piece.