IMDb RATING
5.5/10
3.4K
YOUR RATING
A lonely girl's violent descent into madness.A lonely girl's violent descent into madness.A lonely girl's violent descent into madness.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAfter watching 1960s horror films while writing, Director Mickey Keating said it felt "right and necessary" to shoot in black and white.
- GoofsDuring the many flashes and scenes featuring the locked door at the end of the hall you can see the shoes marks in the bottom right and marks around the door handle appear and disappear. These marks are made when she uses a knife to unlock the door toward the end of the film.
- Crazy creditsHalfway in the ending credits there is a scene with a new girl arriving at the mansion.
- SoundtracksLook Away Love
Written by Jay Ramsey (as Gerald H Ramsey)
Performed by Jay Ramsey & The Contempos
Courtesy of Fervor Records
Featured review
Avant-Garde Beauty
Like visiting The Museum of Modern Art, Darling needs to be approached from the right state of mind to connect with it. Its value lies more in how its story is told rather than the details of the narrative itself; a kind of filmmaking that hearkens back to expressionist films of the 1920s. It's exciting that micro-budget indie filmmakers are now able to reach audiences via steaming services and attempt these kinds of artistic explorations that you simply won't see from larger productions, let alone Hollywood.
The story is simple and classic: A young woman takes a job as a caretaker of a haunted mansion and weird things begin to happen. But the film only uses the narrative as means of providing us with familiarity while focusing our attention on its visual presentation.
And Darling is all about the visuals; the script can't be more than a few pages. Long periods pass with a single, well-composed shot creating a sense of wonder and uncertainty in the viewer. The choice of black & white cinematography allows the camera to always be in control, reminding us that everything we see is slightly unreal, especially when moments of powerful violence happen. If it were shot in color, the gore would have been the message and distracted us from the artistic statement.
Darling is not for everyone, and horror film aficionados may be disappointed or consider it pretentious. And it does start off slow: it took the first 15 minutes for me to relax and not try to rush it.
Lauren Ashley Carter is captivating in the lead role, appearing in nearly every shot. She conveys a shifting range of emotions causing me to feel sympathy for her seeming innocence then later repulsing me by her brutality. She gets the avant-garde nature of this production and finds the right tone in every scene.
Look for Larry Fessenden (Habit) in a bit part toward the end.
I recommend Darling for the vision it attempted and mostly succeeded at presenting us with. It's not a typical horror film, but something to be watched and admired for its beauty and simplicity.
The story is simple and classic: A young woman takes a job as a caretaker of a haunted mansion and weird things begin to happen. But the film only uses the narrative as means of providing us with familiarity while focusing our attention on its visual presentation.
And Darling is all about the visuals; the script can't be more than a few pages. Long periods pass with a single, well-composed shot creating a sense of wonder and uncertainty in the viewer. The choice of black & white cinematography allows the camera to always be in control, reminding us that everything we see is slightly unreal, especially when moments of powerful violence happen. If it were shot in color, the gore would have been the message and distracted us from the artistic statement.
Darling is not for everyone, and horror film aficionados may be disappointed or consider it pretentious. And it does start off slow: it took the first 15 minutes for me to relax and not try to rush it.
Lauren Ashley Carter is captivating in the lead role, appearing in nearly every shot. She conveys a shifting range of emotions causing me to feel sympathy for her seeming innocence then later repulsing me by her brutality. She gets the avant-garde nature of this production and finds the right tone in every scene.
Look for Larry Fessenden (Habit) in a bit part toward the end.
I recommend Darling for the vision it attempted and mostly succeeded at presenting us with. It's not a typical horror film, but something to be watched and admired for its beauty and simplicity.
helpful•179
- zrammedia
- Sep 5, 2016
- How long is Darling?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
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