Darling (2015)

Let's be realistic.

Just perfect...

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This film was just too pretentious for me to really get into in any meaningful way. I felt like it was trying way too hard to be some kind of quirky, black and white art-house movie and wound up putting more effort into this contrived style rather than making a movie with any substance. Director Mickey Keating — who also directed Pod, which I reviewed recently, which has literally all the same main characters minus Sean Young, as well as the same music composer AND same cinematographer — definitely knew what kind of mood he was aiming for, but he forgot to put any deep thought into things like dialogue or getting a strong performance out of his characters. I'm not entirely surprised, since Pod had the same issues for me — a good shell of a movie but no substantial filling."Darling" (she is given no other name), played by Lauren Ashley Carter, is a mysterious young girl who is tasked with watching an old, beautiful apartment in the heart of New York City while its wealthy residents are away. She is warned that a previous caretaker threw herself off the balcony, and there is talk of the apartment itself being haunted. Throughout the short time that she is house sitting we watch her descent into madness before her tragic end.** SPOILERS! **I guess my biggest issue with this movie is, as I mentioned, the fact that Keating's focus on style and mood seemed to trump his effort to build a meaningful character with Darling. He had this great opportunity to delve into the topics of gentrification, urban isolation, the trauma of possible sexual assault, and mental illness, to name a few, but he seemed to prefer to simply have a pretty girl stare blankly into the camera. We really never get to know much about her aside from studying every facet of her face since she probably stares into the camera for half the damn movie runtime. I had high hopes when the movie opened up with some impressively stark shots of the city — it's a rare treat when a movie seamlessly blends genuine terror and character development with an abundance of aesthetic beauty — but alas, all I got were some cool upside down shots of skyscrapers and enough shock cuts to make me never want to see another one again in my entire life.All of the mentions of a paranormal side of things — the apartment being haunted, the previous caretaker committing suicide, the mention by her date that a conjuring of the devil was once attempted in the building — are all sadly glossed over, despite the fact that they could have been interesting additions to the plot if they were explored a bit more. It does what many other greats before it have done — blurring the line and making us wonder what is truly paranormal and what is a product of spiraling into madness — but it just doesn't do it nearly as well.The murder of her date was unexpected, and somewhat shocking to witness — him gasping awake unexpectedly and the subsequent suffocation with the plastic bag were particularly hard to watch. But ultimately, like most aspects of the movie — I mean, come on, it's broken into chapters for some inexplicable reason — I felt like it was trying a bit too hard.Then the ending just gets plain cheesy, with her talking to Madame on the phone, hinting again at her past trauma, and saying "I think I'll become one of your ghost stories now" *eye roll*.Overall, YAWN. Pretty to look at? Sure. But I would have preferred it spend more time making me think — or, hell, scaring me — than repeatedly juxtaposing her blank expression with a strobed shot of her screaming face.

Darling follows a woman as she moves into a new house where she slowly, and violently, goes insane. I watched this movie on Hallowe'en night, unsure exactly what I was getting into. I'd been curious about it, but never did I expect this. Let's start with the performances. They're good. The supporting cast is fine, but nothing to write home about. The shining star in all this is the leading actress, Lauren Ashley Carter. Right from her opening scene she was fantastic. The way she delivers dialogue in particular was great, and although she didn't talk much, watching her perform was a treat. The story itself is subtle and engaging. There's a level of mystery that surrounds the entire atmosphere of the film. Not only that, but the character of Darling herself is very interesting. As the movie progresses you as the audience begins to realize that this isn't the beginning of this woman's struggles, but rather a continuation. It's clear that Darling has had a troubled past, and the series of new events unfolding before her in her new home set her mind off in the direction it seemed to have been heading already. Not only that, but Darling acts similarly to a real person in her situation. She begins to fear herself and what she's becomes, and expresses that in scenes that are both very powerful and a little on the hard side to watch. Now, let's get into the most effective aspect of the film: the horror. This is an unnerving and genuinely frightening movie, and I don't say that often. I've been unsettled by a few horror films, but Darling takes the cake for being actually scary. The movie briefly shows images and scenes that are assumed to be Darling's thoughts, and while some people would call this a cheap horror gimmick, I say otherwise. The imagery shown is often somewhat unnerving and vague, and only processing each image for a short second just adds to that. No, they aren't jump scares, there isn't a loud sound to go along with each one, nor are they all that sudden. They become a regular occurrence, but the director Mickey Keating knows exactly when to use each one. Furthermore, there are a handful of scenes that are just plain hard to watch, made all the more effective by the character we have now come to care for. It's a movie you have to see for yourself, but trust me, there are some genuinely unnerving scenes, one in particular involving a bathtub. Overall Darling is not only horrifying but also well-acted and well- written, with an interesting story and great characters. In the end I'd definitely recommend this movie.

Talk about a movie that tests your patience. Well, that's sure as hell not the recently released, exceedingly atmospheric horror flick "Darling". No, your patience won't be tested......because it'll flippin' be TORTURED all to shreds! Good GOLLY does it take an ETERNITY for anything to happen in this thing. And then when it FINALLY does, you're like, "All that interminable build-up to THIS???"Writer/Director/Co-Producer Mickey Keating clearly is trying to evoke the feel of late '50's/early '60's Hitchcockian suspense as his black and white film lens depicts present-day New York City, together with the story's main characters, as though what we are witnessing is somehow suspended in time during this bygone era. Keating also borrows heavily here from Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" in terms of plot, structure, vibe and effect. In step with what is an apparent homage to the classics, Keating gives a grotesquely macabre nod to Audrey Hepburn in what may best be described as a perverse version of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on a bad, and I do mean RANCIDLY bad, acid trip.Lauren Ashley Carter (whom Keating also directed in 2015's equally offbeat horror mystery "Pod") does what she can in the title role. And she's really pretty effective as a lonely young woman gone nuts, or rather even MORE wacko, as would appear to be the case in "Darling". There's even a Sean Young sighting (remember her, kids?) as a super creepy matronly type name of "Madame". EWWW-HEW-HEW-HEW. But in the end, it's all been done before.And enormous quantum leaps better than it's done here, darlin'.

Wow! I really admire how they put together this film. The complementary interaction between the sound effects - those harsh, dissonant sounds - and the fuzzy, almost dulled cinematography (interspersed, of course, with those terrifyingly epileptic flashes) really makes for the perfect horror atmosphere. The editing is brilliant. I have a bit of an issue with the pacing of the film overall. The first thirty minutes were kind of dull, despite the jumpscares, and I almost decided to skip over it entirely. The acting, however, is fantastic. I didn't recognize Lauren from Jug Face and Pod, so when I saw other people pointing it out, I found that made sense. Her skill is very obvious in these movies (even in Pod, which was not great to be honest). Looking forward to any other projects she'll be in. The plot is ambiguous, as some people have mentioned, but I think it worked for this film. Darling herself is so mixed up in her mind that nothing comes across as the truth to the audience. Not being able to figure out any concrete answers is a part of how uneasy this film can make you, in my opinion. (And adding to that mysterious eeriness is the scene in the middle of the credits! Really left me wanting more.) Ultimately, I found this to be a very well made film, a clear labor of love in the name of horror, dependent on the actors' performances and the conceptualization. Something like this is very divisive: you either love it, or you hate it. And I really loved it.