Strange Darling, the new film from director JT Mollner is a lot of things except what they market the film to be.

This film might have flown under the radar for some and that’s not surprising. Strange Darling has had a weird history with its production by Miramax, initial screening last year at Fantastic Fest, and finally landing a distribution deal with Magenta Light Studios earlier this year. The film is currently scheduled for wide release on August 23rd but with over twenty review scores from early screeners and last year’s initial Fantastic Fest release, the film currently sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Strange Darling is an odd film and not one I’m sure I can accurately describe without ruining the plot. The film bills itself as a cat-and-mouse serial killer thriller but that’s not entirely accurate. What I’ll say is the film plays with time and its overall theme deals with one-night stands. How vulnerable people are in those situations, engaging in a deeply intimate experience with someone you know very little about.

The standout of the film and something you may have heard about other than Stephen King’s praise for the film is Giovanni Ribisi’s cinematography. Ribisi is a long-time working actor who’s been in everything from That Thing You Do to the Avatar series. This is his first work behind the camera and he absolutely nails it. There is a scene where our two main characters are talking to each other in the front seats of a pickup truck. It’s early on in the film and we know very little about their relationship. The camera is placed looking up from the backseat, almost sheepish behind the two stars. Ribisi gives us this sense that we are hiding behind the characters, not revealing or knowing who either of these people are. After a pretty shocking reveal the story comes back to this scene, but the camera is placed front and center in front of our characters. We know them now and we are looking at them head-on.

This isn’t the only time we see these characters in the same place but with different viewpoints. The majority of the film takes place in two locations, moving back and forth between the two. The tension in each place rises and changes based on what we know about the characters. We see the same people in the same location but our feelings towards them are totally different after we learn the truths about the people we are following. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, even if it doesn’t always land.

JT Mollner takes a lot of inspiration from Quentin Tarantino here with his second feature film. The entire plot of the film is structured like many of Tarantino’s flicks from the 90s and there is a plethora of homages to the director’s great work. The opening scene involves an early 70 Ford Pinto that looks outrageously Tarantino, our lead Willa Fitzgerald wears a bright red outfit that hearkens back to Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and several other references I won’t mention to avoid story beat spoilers. These homages and story structuring work to a point, but they also at times undermine the film.

Strange Darling is an homage not just to Tarantino, but also to the slasher and exploration films of the 70’s. Again Giovanni Ribisi’s cinematography nails this aesthetic but all of those films have something this film doesn’t. A sense of fun. Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner play the leads here and while their acting is great, it never really matches the vibe of the film. They are playing this film very straight and it is not at all a straight horror movie. Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr show up in the film also and their characters are so flat they feel totally out of place in the film. They are supposed to be a weird old hippy couple and we as the audience only know this because they directly tell the audience with zero flair that they are an old hippy couple. There are quirks and oddities around their home and with their mannerisms, but none of that comes off in a way that would portray to the audience how we are supposed to view them. Instead, the actors have to tell us who they are which is never great writing.

The director has been pretty precious with work, saying it’s best to know nothing about the film going in. I went in knowing nothing about the film and it didn’t really enhance my experience. I’m glad I wasn’t spoiled on any reveals but a film like this, a bloody exploitation thriller, should be more about the experience than the reveals.

When I think of Tarantino films I think about long scenes that are carried by exceptional dialogue. The underground bar scene in Inglorious Basterds, the opening diner scene in Reservoir Dogs, hell, the entirety of The Hateful Eight. Tarantino makes these long scenes feel interesting despite the lack of blood and gore in such a way that when the blood and gore finally come, it’s an incredible surprise. We don’t feel like we’ve been waiting for the action to happen, we’re surprised because we’ve been having so much fun with these characters. Strange Darling takes the same idea but the dialogue is so stiff and bland, the characters so uninteresting outside of their reveals, that all we are doing is waiting for the gore. When it comes it’s satisfying, but there’s little else to keep the audience engaged. It’s also all played in front of a soundtrack filled with out-of-place licensed music. I won’t belabor that point but the music in this movie is a choice for sure, but it’s a bad one that makes the entire film worse. Strange Darling is unfortunately a 5. There is a lot of talent here working on this film but ultimately it was all let down by poor dialogue and uninteresting characters.