ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Strange Darling director JT Mollner and cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi about the new serial killer film starring Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. The duo talked about filming the thriller, working with two talented stars, the unique color palette, and more. The film is in theaters now via Magenta Light Studios.
“Nothing is as it seems in Strange Darling when a crazy one-night stand leads to a serial killer’s brutal murder spree,” says the film’s logline.
Tyler Treese: JT, I love the energy in Strange Darling. There were suspenseful scenes, wild action, blood, and I felt like a bit of a pervert, but I had a grin on my face the whole time. How did I get that tone? Because I loved it and I don’t know if I should feel that way.
JT Mollner: That’s a great observation, because that was the goal in this film. Sometimes you make a film with a disturbing subject that is meant to be disturbing from beginning to end. We wanted it to be a rollercoaster ride, and we wanted it to be fun in some ways. A scary rollercoaster ride is fun, right? That’s a challenge. There’s a bit of comedy and absurdity in the film. That’s in the film. We always thought that would make it entertaining.
It’s in the structure of the story, and then there’s the idea of going on a journey with these characters because you’re thrown right into the action with them. Then you’re taken back in time and you see how they got there, and being in a pressure cooker with these characters is… masochistic fun, I like to call it. It’s one of those things that, for some reason, should be fun. If you’re like you, and if you’re like me, and probably Giovanni here, it’s just a certain type of person that enjoys that kind of journey. That’s who we made the movie for.
Giovanni, the colors in this film are really bright. Red is everywhere, from the blood to the red car and red underwear to the wig. What was it like establishing this color palette in Strange Darling?
Giovanni Ribisi: Well, the color palette was really based on discussions we had for four to five months before we shot the film. It was really grounded in the fabric. We wanted to use primary colors and avoid tertiary colors and pastels, and what you see is so common in streaming and other digital content. But that was the idea. It was just bold choices, just kind of raw and simple.
Mollner: Very striking colors, you know? I think it’s a bit like with music. I wrote a film a few years ago that we didn’t make. It was a blue film from the beginning. I could just feel that, and this film, even though we built and developed a whole palette of primary colors during the development process, definitely felt like a red film from the beginning. I remember, I think, in the first draft of the script, there was the old title, which I won’t mention; it was in red on the script, just the title. Yeah, it was just to give an idea of the tone. Then we talked about how in so many modern films everything was tertiary colors, everything was pastel and everything was dark and dreary and everything, like every decision we made, the development of the palette and all that, was a little act of resistance to convention, or at least current convention.
So we really wanted to use color, and that had a lot to do with the cinematography and the footage and what Giovanni chose to capture that color and take advantage of the saturation. But also our production designer, like what you put in the frame, we worked with Priscilla Elliott, who was recommended by Richard Kelly, a mutual friend. I’m a huge fan of anyone Richard recommends. Anyone he recommends, I look at very closely. And so we convinced Priscilla to do the film, and she came in and was able to bring the very specific vision to life and give us discipline by making sure that colors that shouldn’t be in the frame never ended up in the frame.
Ribisi: Yes. She was incredible. She was so instrumental in everything. We were presented with so many challenges but she never complained and made things happen. I really hope we both get to work with her again.
Mollner: Yes. She was incredible. And of course that goes into the costume design. Rudy Rojas came in to do the costumes and Priscilla worked closely with him. Everyone was on board. All the department heads agreed to stick strictly to what Priscilla liked to call color control.
I remember we went to see Lost Highway. It was the first thing I did in Oregon when I arrived and met Priscilla to see the film at the Hollywood Theater. They were having a re-release. We walked and talked about how you just feel immersed in something special. Like you’re immersed in something and absorbed in it. In this film, you can’t escape the overall feeling it gives you and the specificity of it. She said it was because they were committed and dedicated to color control. She said it was hard to keep directors disciplined enough to stick to that. She really helped us with that and just executed it beautifully. I’m very happy with her work as well.
JT, you mentioned the structure. Strange Darling is shown in chapters, it goes back and forth. Was it always in the script that it jumps back and forth so wildly? Because I love how it just plays with the expectations of the viewer andD has a lot of fun with it.
Mollner: Yes. The script or the story came to me in that order. So it was always out of order, and that had to be that way because that’s what made it exciting. I think the story being in order is somewhat conventional. It’s interesting because I find the characters interesting. But the story itself plays out pretty straight as a linear story. The reason I wanted to write that was because it offered me a different path into the subgenre of serial killer films in that order, to offer a different path in a different paradigm. Rather than trying to do something totally different, we could show something or a story that’s familiar from a different perspective and show more nuance and different points of view. I thought that was exciting. Essentially, we could subvert expectations and surprise people as the film went on.
Ribisi: Yeah, I was going to say it’s interesting because, as you know, it’s not linear, but what’s unique and special about it is that that structure, that plot really comes from the characters and what those characters are going through, and in that sense, it’s a necessity. I think what we’re seeing and hearing is that the movie is even better when people watch it a second time. So it’s not necessarily something that just relies on a big twist or reveal, but it’s really about those characters, and the actors in particular and the performances in the movie are phenomenal. They really went all out, and everyone was just inspired to do that.
Giovanni, Kyle Gallner is so great with his intensity, but the camera just loves Willa in Strange Darling. Her face is so expressive and she can give so much no matter what the scene. How much easier is it to photograph someone like her when they are just so photogenic?
Ribisi: She’s definitely photogenic. Beautiful. But I think the approach was really about who these characters are, what they’re going through and the story. And I think in the conversations we had before production, it was about creating this world that feels like a fairy tale. Our mission statement was “blood on the flowerbed,” so that was part of it. But yeah, she’s radiant in that.
Thanks to JT Mollner and Giovanni Ribisi for discussing the film.
