For the last few years I've tried to end this countdown with a brand new movie, but this time I'm ending it with a....kind of new movie.
When I went to see MaXXXine at a preview screening, there were trailers for three horror movies before it, and the trailers made all of the movies look totally worth seeing. One trailer was for Cuckoo, which I went to see the weekend it opened. It was...not great. Another trailer was for The Front Room, which opened to pretty mediocre reviews, so I figured I wouldn't bother with that one until it's streaming somewhere.
The third trailer was for Strange Darling, which seemed to have good word of mouth, but I was never able to check it out before it disappeared from theaters. (Also, it's a dumb title that I could just couldn't remember; I kept thinking it was called Strange Angel???) I had a free online rental on Apple TV+ so figured OK, let's see if those promising trailers resulted in at least one out of three worth seeing.
One thing the trailer highlighted is that actor Giovanni Ribisi is the film's director of photography, which seems like a strange flex. The movie itself opens with a big title card, almost like some kind of trigger warning, that the movie was shot entirely on 35mm. Which is great! But not worth such a pretentious call out. (To be fair, the cinematography is really quite good, aside from one scene in a hotel room that goes out of focus twice, for no story reason, which seems like a pretty big goof to include when your movie is touting both the name of the cinematographer, and the film's format.)
The film is broken into six chapters, presented out of order. Willa Fitzgerald plays "the Lady," and Kyle Gallner is "the Demon," two people about to embark on a possible one night stand at a cheap motel. The Lady asks the Demon if he's a serial killer, and I'll say right now, the minute she asked that, I knew what this movie was doing.
The non-linear storytelling makes the predictability of the plot a little more forgivable. You know where this story is going to end up, so learning just how it gets there, puzzle piece by puzzle piece, is a little more enjoyable. Also, seeing Ed Begley Jr and Barbara Hershey pop up as "Mountain People" preparing the most insane breakfast ever is a pleasant surprise.
All that said, there was something about Strange Angel Darling that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but saying just why that is would ruin some of the film's surprises (or at least attempts at surprises). I didn't regret watching it, but ultimately I think it proves, as far as those three movie trailers go, we're O-for-three on the movies themselves.
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