Review: Strange Darling (2023)

“Sometimes I don’t see humans, I see devils.”

WORDS: Eve McPherson

In the opening frame of Strange Darling (2023), the camera tilts up at a man known only as The Demon. Our protagonist, The Lady, asks him, “Are you a serial killer?” The next shot of him strangling someone out of view does little to assuage our collective fears.

The prologue text that follows tells us that we are about to watch the true story of the final known killings in the rampage of a unique and prolific serial killer – a touch reminiscent of the opening crawl in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

So, when we see The Lady run towards us over the hill dripping with blood, we make an assumption about who or what she is running from. Even the character names serve to lead us in a certain direction.

The film is told in six chapters that are presented out of sequence, and this helps to demarcate characteristics of victim and villain in our leads before giving us an understanding of whether they truly fit these archetypes.

For the first few chapters, we know nothing about them beyond the cat and mouse game that’s unfolding. We see a man grow increasingly angry in his pursuit of a woman who seems increasingly vulnerable.

As viewers, we fall into the same trap as many of the characters in the film: we underestimate The Lady’s potential.

After The Demon shoots The Lady, we return to the opening scene of the two of them flirting in a car. Wearing a red wig, The Lady gives the impression that she is trying to be someone else. Whether this is a disguise or feels closer to her true form is unclear.

The conversation drifts from flirtation to fear rapidly. For The Lady, pleasure is a focus – but it comes at a cost: “Do you have any idea the kind of risks a woman like me takes every time she agrees to have a little bit of fun?” With a gun she doesn’t know about hidden in the backseat, her fear is immediately justified.

This is a quest for pleasure that reads more as an attempt to reveal the true nature of an impatient man. A man who tells her, “Don’t sell me the car and then tell me not to drive it.” When things move to a motel bedroom, our suspicions are confirmed – The Lady doesn’t stand a chance in a physical fight. A battle of wits, however, she might just win.

With the parameters of consent laid out beforehand, the pair agree to proceed unless a certain word is uttered. As they act out a sadistic roleplay, The Demon’s attempt at a fantasy they could both enjoy certainly feels predicated on violence.

That makes the reveal of the serial killer in Strange Darling even more interesting. Carrying out murders in response to visions of supposed demons taking the place of humans, The Lady acts on impulse when she sees one of these flashes in The Demon.

Her murderous nature is first displayed earlier in the film – though later in the narrative – when she kills one of the people who tries to help her by attempting to call the police.

There seems to be a distinction in her approach to killing people who present as devils and those whose death she views as necessary for her protection. She doesn’t want to “fuck up” anyone’s day by engaging in any violence she doesn’t deem essential – giving the sense that she views the harm she causes as a mere minor inconvenience.

Returning to the motel room, it isn’t clear if The Lady entered into the evening always intending to proceed with this encounter for her pleasure – or if the greater pleasure comes from eliminating those she sees as devils.

Our understanding only grows murkier when The Lady later explains that she felt the “purest most primal kind” of love for The Demon during their encounter, specifically during her strangulation, as alluded to in the opening scene.

There are elements of the ‘Cool Girl’ in The Lady – like Amy Dunne in Gone Girl (2014), she uses drinking and other such behaviours as a kind of defence mechanism or performance. This helps her stay safe whilst aligning with societal expectations of women – even though her killing spree and approach to it diverge from this standard.

The craft of the structure is such that it is hard not to – at least on some level – sympathise with The Lady. Whilst she can seemingly disengage emotionally from the horror she inflicts, she genuinely believes that she is doing the right thing, and that it couldn’t be avoided. Juxtaposed with The Demon, a man only ever seconds away from something darker, there is perhaps something more truthful in her disguise than his.

With more insight gradually revealed into the mechanisms at play, the question woven throughout the narrative becomes clear: who exactly is in control?

This is a cat and mouse game where the mouse doesn’t realise he’s the mouse. The film keeps audiences in suspense thanks to layered character motivations and a non-linear narrative structure. Whilst no further insight is provided into where her visions come from – if they stem from her mental state or are intended to be impossible to place – it’s not hard to imagine that a desire to reclaim control plays a crucial part.