'Strange Darling' Subverts Expectations Through Nonlinear Storytelling and a Great Twist

Strange Darling is one of the most surprising films I have seen in a long time. The movie is purposely told out of order, introducing multiple great ideas along with one twist that really sells the film for me as I continued to watch whatever the hell was about to happen.

(To not cause any confusion, I will tell the film in order).

The movie begins with two unnamed people, who are referred to as Lady and Demon. These two are preparing to spend time together in a hotel room, and Lady has specific wants when it comes to the bedroom. Demon plays along, even though it makes him slightly uncomfortable. At some point, Lady admits that she likes Demon, and he starts to notice that her behavior is getting quite strange, but he plays along with it, excited with spending a night with her. 

She convinces Demon to take drugs with her, and while they are making out, Lady suddenly rejects Demon, putting on her shoes. Demon gets upset, and leaves the hotel room. Lady goes outside to retrieve him, because she secretly gave him ketamine instead of drugs. He is now paralyzed, she puts him on the bed, and proceeds to cut into him, cutting the initials, E.L.

Lady stops the torture at some point, and goes to the bathroom to remove her red wig, exposing her blonde hair. She finds a shocking discovery, realizing that Demon is actually a cop. She decides to finish him off, but he was prepared this time, using his gun to shoot her ear off. Lady runs out of the hotel, convinces people to let her in a hospital, kills one of the women, and then steals clothes and a car to get away from the town. 

She is chased by Demon, and he is able to stop her, causing her to crash the car. She runs into the woods, attempts to disinfect her wound with a bottle of liquor she finds, and eventually finds a house in the woods. She begs for help, and the couple takes her in, wrapping a bandage over her ear wound. They offer to call the cops, and out of fear of getting caught, Lady kills the man. She tells the woman she won’t kill her next, and offers to tie her up instead. While she is being lead to a spot to tie the woman up, she sees Demon has arrived at the house. The woman gets away, and Lady panics, running back into the house to hide. 

She hides in the freezer, but Demon is able to find her. He handcuffs her to the freezer, and while she is talking to Demon, she reveals that she is a serial killer, known as The Electric Lady. This made sense, since E.L. was cut into Demon’s chest. During the conversation, she uses bear spray on him. She bites off a piece of his neck, and he dies while losing a lot of blood. She wasn’t aware that he had called for backup, and she pretends to play a victim again as two cops arrive. Gale, the female cop believes that Lady is a victim, but the older cop doesn’t buy the scene, since Demon was one of their own. 

They get into an argument, and decide to bring Lady along, to help her. 

Things instantly go wrong once the woman that Lady was planning to tie up shows up to the car, begging for help. 

Lady kills the woman on the spot, and tells Gale to get out of the car. She orders the older cop to drive, and at some point, they end up in the middle of nowhere. He asks Lady why she kills people, and she confesses that she doesn’t see humans sometimes. In their place, she only sees a demon, which explains why the first dude she was interacting with in the film, was referred to as Demon. (I think she backed away from him during their make out session, because she had seen a demon in him). 

At that moment, she sees a demon in the place of the cop, and she kills him off screen. She leaves the vehicle, and sees a car is coming. She pretends to play a victim once again, and the woman helps Lady to the car. When Lady gets into the car, she suddenly sees a demon in her place, in the side mirror of the car. She looks accepting of her fate, and takes out a gun to end her life. The woman beats her first, shooting Lady. She takes away her gun, calls the hospital that she just shot someone in self defense, and is now heading over with the injured Lady. 

The film ends with Lady clinging to life, slowly dying from blood loss as the color of the film goes from colorful to black and white. 

Strange Darling is one of my favorite serial killer films, and I can’t believe it took me so long to watch this movie. I’m so glad I knew nothing about this movie, I would have been pissed if I had been spoiled with the main twist. It’s one of my favorite horror films so far in October this year, and I highly recommend that every horror fan checks out this movie!

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn