Writer-director JT Mollner flips the horror script on its cinematic head with this unconventional film.

Strange Darling begins with a young woman or “the Lady” as she’s known in the film (Willa Fitzgerald, Reacher, The Fall of the House of Usher) sporting a bandage on her left ear running across a wooded area in a red jumpsuit, clearly distressed. It is a recognizable image, sure, seemingly fitting the horror film trope of the lone woman escaping the deranged killer. And we meet the presumed killer, “the Demon” (Kyle Gallner, Smile, Dinner in America), soon after chasing the young woman, a modern-looking redneck in a plaid jacket with dirty blonde-haired hair and an almost handlebar mustache carrying a shotgun ready to pounce on his victim, yelling, “Here, Kitty Kitty.”

There is no dialogue for almost 10 minutes of the film. Action sequences, yes. That lead to suspension and pure anxiety. Elements that adequately compensate for the nonverbal visuals to keep the viewer engaged.

Filmmaker JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels) prefaces the film with a narrated backstory with accompanying words about an elusive serial killer who’s been killing people for years and how the carnage came to an end by revealing the story in the course of six chapters in the movie. Yet, Mollner starts the film with chapter three and continuously goes back and forth between chapters to give the audience more information, excruciatingly fun and unpredictably horrific. It’s a wildly effective storytelling technique reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s ground-breaking story-structure-disrupting film Pulp Fiction. In addition, the gore factor is relatively high in Strange Darling. Tarantino would be proud.

Strange Darling even resorts to scrolling red text on a black background, a color scheme synonymous with many a horror film, especially one of my favorites: John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween, ominous factor, check!

But the horror tropes keep coming.

The audience thinks they know who the serial killer is, but our theory is ground to a screeching halt when several bloodbaths ensue, leaving innocent people in the murderer’s wake, which “the Demon” may or may not have committed. It’s terrifying. It’s unanticipated and gives way to nuanced and exciting storytelling audiences crave. The film’s point of view shifts between killer and victim/and/or victims, and it’s magical to watch as the series of events unravels.

I won’t share any spoilers because Strange Darling, produced by Giovanni Ribisi (Lost in Translation, Sneaky Pete) and served as cinematographer, is a must-watch. It made my top five horror movies of the last decade. Yeah, it’s that good. Watch it now on Prime Video.

Other notable horror flicks with fantastic twists to add to your film repertoire:

1. Midsommar — written and directed by Ari Aster.

2. Thanksgiving (couldn’t be more seasonal) — co-written and directed by Eli Roth.