Darling

Darling is creepy as shit. I jumped a lot watching this movie. There’s a great scene where Darling (the only name the main character goes by) is having a drink at a bar with her new male friend; she excuses herself, walks into the restroom and starts shrieking and crying. There’s another, quieter scene where she sits at a diner, holding a coffee cup in mid-air for about thirty seconds.

Set in New York City in the Upper West Side, Darling starts when Madame (Sean Young) meets the young woman who is the new caretaker of her house. The older woman tells Darling that the former caretaker threw herself off the roof. Soon afterwards, Darling starts hearing weird things during her midnight jaunts around the house. She finds an upside-down cross in a cabinet and a door that won’t open.

Of course, there are the usual rumors about the house being haunted. There are also hints that something’s wrong with Darling; these hints get less and less subtle as this movie progresses. I don’t want to give away too much, and would advise against watching the trailer. Let’s just say Darling has some intense imagery. For the first half-hour I thought this was going to be the type of movie that relies on rising suspense instead of action, but some pretty horrific shit happens.

Darling is shot in black-and-white. The cinematography is great and many of the scenes are direct homages to The Shining. Lauren Ashley Carter is great as Darling. The plot is threadbare and doesn’t explain a lot, but who cares? I think this movie is scarier if you remove the supernatural element, which brings me to Darling’s other influence: Fatal Attraction. Be careful who you go home with, because they might be out of their fucking minds. It happens.

Darling is available on Netflix Streaming, if you want to watch it. And you should.