Strange Darling (2024). A story "in six chapters" that begins with chapter 3, this is the story of a woman (Willa Fitzgerald from The Fall of the House of Usher, Reacher) being chased by a man with a gun from a hookup gone wrong. Or maybe it's a totally different story, since "nothing is as it seems."
This is very stylish, with its beautiful warm colors ("Made on 35mm film," it announces during the opening credits, which feels a bit desperate tbh) and interesting lighting and title cards. Unfortunately, both the stylistic pretensions and the story mostly run out of steam at about the halfway point. I enjoyed the nonlinearity, but most of the big reveals felt obvious anyway. The movie also does NOT know when to stop. There's a natural stopping point and the movie bulldozes right past it for another 10 or 15 completely unnecessary minutes that release all the prior tension, which was one of the movie's greatest strengths. I've seen some strong criticisms of its politics, but I can't get too worked up about them because the worst of them are all after the movie should have ended anyway.
I also, personally, found the initial negotiation around the hookup and then the hookup itself excruciatingly, almost unwatchably awkward. To be fair, it was supposed to be awkward! But it took my almost an hour to watch about 10 minutes of movie because I struggled so much.
( spoilers )Everything else aside, I watched this because it's nominated for best film for the Dead Meat Horror Awards, and this did not feel like a horror movie to me; it felt like a thriller. On the plus side, it's nice to see little indie thrillers getting made, too.
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Heretic (2024). Two young Mormon missionaries, Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are trapped in a cat and mouse game by a man they visit, Mr Reed (Hugh Grant).
This has fantastic atmosphere throughout. Even the weather is great, and Mr. Reed and his house have enjoyably bad vibes from the very beginning. I especially appreciate how menacing Mr. Reed feels without explicitly or implicitly threatening any kind of physical violence until quite late in the story. The movie understands that the situations he's putting the young women in are already terrifying; overt threats are not needed.
All three actors do a fantastic job, and in particular Hugh Grant's turn to straight-up villain is really fun. Things get very talky in the middle as he harasses the sisters about their faith, how it's all fake, etc, and Grant sells all of it as one of those skeptics who's just fucking obnoxious about it. I knew the basic premise of the movie going in, but was not prepared for just how MUCH the story is about Christianity. I imagine it was a very different viewing experience for someone with no Christian background.
The movie gets pretty silly in the second half, and the big final conclusion about Mr. Reed's basically philosophy ("The one true religion is [spoiler]"), felt both too pat and not set up well enough. However, the character work is fantastic to the very end. I really enjoyed the sisters and the dynamic between them. They're distinct characters who are both earnest about their faith, in distinct but complementary ways, and I liked that. I particularly liked how from the first scene we see that Sister Paxton is someone who's thinking all the time to the point that she probably annoys a lot of the people around her AND is probably straying well beyond the bounds of what the church would prefer her to think about, and how this inquisitiveness and attention to detail plays out in the movie's plot without ever explicitly calling out that aspect of her character.
On a trivial note,
( mild spoilers )Overall, a well-made movie that kind of overreaches its premise, but still a very worthwhile watch. Probably one I will rewatch at some point.
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