‘Strange Darling’ (2023)
Where “MaXXXine” and “Longlegs” stoked serial-killer fandom, looking to reinvent the genre but falling short, TJ Mollner’s “Strange Darling” gets the job done. Set in the Pacific Northwest, with a neat, retro ’70s vibe (though the action happens in the now) we’re told in the preamble that a killer’s been working the area. Just how many have fallen victim isn’t offered, just that the killer’s been at it for a while. Cut to a bloodied young woman in red scrubs running in slo-mo, fear in her eyes, mouth agape – a shot that would make Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven proud. This perpetual-panic chiller (with a script also by Mollner) is told in six nonlinear chapters. We begin with “Chapter 3” in which the young blonde in the scrubs (Willa Fitzgerald, “The Fall of the House of Usher”), tagged in the credits as The Lady, zips down a road in a vintage 1978 red Pinto hatchback chased by a determined ruffian in a pickup (Kyle Gallner), who’s listed as The Demon. Given the labels and the setup, you think you know what’s going on, but Mollner is brilliant at obfuscating and sliding puzzle pieces in and out, altering our sense of reality as we move back and forth in time without any sense of being untethered. “Chapter 1,” essential to be sure, is the least fulfilling and the one that goes on too long when it could have been tightened into a bloody fist like the rest. The deep performances by Gallner and Fitzgerald go far to sell Mollner’s prism-shifting narrative; if not for them this might have gone over the bait-and-switch edge. Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey check in with fantastic turns as eccentric doomsday hippies living off the grid. As for carnage, blood flows regularly and freely, and in creative new ways, with some “Saw”-like scenarios and risqué sex games tossed in for good measure. The real mind blow, and main reason for the film’s success, are the gorgeous blue-and-red filtrations laid down on celluloid by first-time feature film cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi – yup, that actor guy (he’s made Beck videos in the past and has a small part in the film too); the opening credits tell us emphatically that the film is shot on 35 mm. Every frame in every scene is lit meticulously and feels noodled over arduously in staging and composition. Somewhere in L.A., one can imagine old-school cinematography aficionado Quinten Tarantino pumping his fist in the air. If horror was a poker game, Mollner just laid down down a full house. Ti West, what’s your call?
‘Jackpot!’ (2024)
Perhaps the most repetitive and boo-rific tedium of this sad summer fare so far. I’ve been leveling low on many as of late – “The Instigators” and “Borderlands” to name two – but this one takes the mealy sawdust cake. Directed by Paul Feig, who showed his mastery of macabre comedy with “A Simple Favor” (2018), the action drops us into L.A. circa 2030 where, due to an economic downturn, there’s a 24-hour period in which the winner of the statewide lottery can be hunted after they’re announced, with the killer getting the winnings. You can’t use a gun or explosive devices, but knives, axes, sledgehammers and whatnot are acceptable and encouraged. It’s “The Purge” (2013) gone Daffy Duck on helium. Given the casting of Awkwafina and local buff body John Cena as Katie Kim, a failed actress who accidentally wins the lottery and Noel, a security expert who jumps into the fray to save Katie, it’s a wasteful misfire. Sure, novel for a second, but imagine being forced to rinse your mouth with Listerine for two hours, you’d be numb and angry – and perhaps more so here because Awkwafina (“Crazy Rich Asians”) and Cena (“Peacemaker”) have shown such ripe comedic skills in the past and are rendered relatively inert here. The “cheeky” outtakes at the end are a buzzing bowl full of unfunny scat humor that reeks. There’s nothing in this film that punches any ticket – not even a scratcher – and everybody loses.
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