"It's not going to appease everybody..." JT Mollner and Giovanni Ribisi on Strange Darling

Directed by JT Mollner and showing at this year’s FrightFest horror festival, Strange Darling portrays one day in the twisted love life of a serial killer, told in six chapters (which are not in order).

There’s The Demon (Kyle Gallner), a relentless male predator tracking an injured woman through the Oregon wilderness. The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) is trying to outsmart her attacker, but with each tense moment, she grows weaker and less able. For he’s a deranged man on a mission, and it’s only a matter of time before he captures his prey…

We spoke to Strange Darling’s director JT Mollner and director of photography Giovanni Ribisi (who we normally see in front of the camera, starring in movies such as Avatar and TV shows like Sneaky Pete) about making a movie that has a mood…

What were your horror influences when making Strange Darling?

This film definitely came from a specific image that I had in my head for whatever reason, of a woman running through the woods, in distress, in these scrubs with certain music playing. It was this weird fever dream that came to me and it had a lot to do with the archetypal ‘final girl’, and finding a new way to approach her story.

But the emotions and the visuals… all that I knew was that this movie had to be one of those sort of movies that makes you feel like you’ve been dipped in mood.

The films that were really inspiring us were Cries and Whispers, Blue Velvet and David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. Films that were candy-coated and colorful, but also disturbing and left you with a deep, resonant feeling. I wanted to make sure that after people saw this movie, narrative aside, they felt something and never forgot that feeling. That was a big deal for us.

The movie came from images of a woman (Willa Fitzgerald) running through the woods, in distress, wearing scrubs.

Giovanni, how did you get involved in the project?

JT and I met through a mutual friend at Kodak, named Steve Bellamy who is actually more or less woven throughout the fabric of the film during production. I know everybody through Steve. That was about five or six years ago now.

Over the years, JT and I would connect, and he would send me material, and I would send him things. He sent me this – and it had a different title at the time – but within 15 minutes of reading it, I called him, I think it was like 10 o’clock at night, and I said that I have to be a part of it. What can I do to help get this made?

JT Mollner: It was a very good call to get from Giovanni. It was a pretty exciting night for me!

Cries and Whispers, Blue Velvet and David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers inspired the movie. “Films that were candy-coated and colourful but also disturbing,” says director JT Mollner.

What are you hoping audiences will take away from the movie once they’ve watched it at FrightFest?

Giovanni Ribisi: We personally fell in love with the material. We took a good five months of preparation and discussions and testing and watching films together before we went into production. So we had an idea that we wanted to be loyal to, which says something because you can so easily get derailed with something of this budget, or of this ilk.

So we set out to do something and we kind of landed right where we [wanted to]. I think that one of the reasons why I loved the story was that it wasn’t necessarily trying to placate everybody. It was talking about something that felt genuine and authentic. [But] it may be something that might be hard to digest, It’s not going to appease everybody…

**Strange Darling** follows The Demon (Kyle Gallner), a relentless male predator tracking an injured woman…

JT Mollner: We did a lot of work on this movie, and it ended up what we originally wanted it to be. I’d really love people to fall in love with a specific character by the end of the movie and have compassion for that character, regardless of the things the character has done.

I also would love audience members to feel empathy for both of the leads and their characters at different points in the film. That would be nice. It would create conflict when people are finished – not confusion, conflict, because that’s life, and I hope the complexity of those characters, even with such a simplistic narrative, really comes through.

Strange Darling has its European Premiere at FrightFest London on 24 August.Icon Film Distribution presents Strange Darling in UK cinemas from 20 September.