Warning: This article contains detailed spoilers for 2024’sStrange Darling.The chronological order of the events ofStrange Darlingoffers insight into the movie’s full story as well as the reason it was told out of order. The 2024 serial killer thriller, which was written and directed by JT Mollner, consists of six chapters and an epilogue presented out of order. This allows the twists and turns to play out with even more of a sense of disorientation and may be one reason the movie has earned a Certified Fresh 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an accolade from Stephen King, who called it a “clever masterpiece” on X.
TheStrange Darlingcast is led by two stars from different corners of theScreamfranchise. While both characters are unnamed throughout the movie and only given generalized names in the opening credits,The Demon is played by Kyle Gallner, who portrayed Ghostface victim Vince Schneider in the 2022 legacy sequelScreamin addition to holding roles in other recent horror titles includingSmileandMother, May I?. Opposite Gallner,The Lady is played by Willa Fitzgerald, who played lead character Emma Duval in the first two seasons of MTV’sScream: The TV Series.
Why This Thriller With 96% On RT That Stephen King Loves Is A Must-See While It’s Still In Theaters
Strange Darling is one of the most surprising thriller movies of 2024, and here’s why you can see the film while it is still in theaters.
Mister Snuffle
Chapter 1
Chronologically, the first thing to happen in thethriller movieis The Demon and The Lady’s one-night stand, where they flirt in his car while parked outside a motel and eventually head inside. Although this is not revealed until later in the chapter, during this conversation,they establish rules for a BDSM encounter including a safe word. As requested, The Demon takes on the role of a vicious killer and The Lady uses the safe word, saying she needs a break but ensuring him that she is enjoying herself and she wants to keep going.
The safe word gives Chapter 1 its title, though the characters actually say “Mr. Snuffleupagus.”
While “Mister Snuffle” is the first chapter ofStrange Darling, it is presented third in the movie. Itoffers the first real inkling of what may be going on between the two characters, because the moment where The Demon seemingly unveils the murderous tendencies that have been showcased in the previously screened chapters is revealed to be part of their pre-arranged game.
Do You Like To Party?
Chapter 2
The second chapter ofStrange Darlingcontinues The Demon and The Lady’s encounter in the motel room. While playing hard to get, she offers him cocaine but secretly slips him ketamine. While he is passed out, she carves the initials “E.L.” into his chest and takes a break in the bathroom to go through his things, where she discovers that he is a police officer. Before she can strike the killing blow with her blade, he shoots her with his concealed firearm and she escapes, stabbing a motel employee and carjacking a woman in the lobby.
This chapter plays fifth in the movie’s original order, making itthe penultimate chapter before the epilogue. It offers fuller context about exactly what was happening during the first moments of the movie, explaining why The Demon is chasing The Lady while snorting cocaine, in order to keep himself awake, in addition to other major details about how she is dressed and where she got her car.
Can You Help Me? Please?
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 picks up shortly after chapter 2. The Demon has gotten into his truck and issnorting cocaine to stay awake while he chases The Lady in her stolen car, attempting to stop her with his shotgun. He blows out her rear windshield, causing a wreck, so she escapes into the woods, where she finds an abandoned campsite and uses alcohol to sterilize the wound on her neck that she received from The Demon’s gunshot during chapter 2. She then runs through the woods and finds a nearby cabin, where she knocks on the door and asks the residents for help.
When The Lady approaches the cabin, the residents are listening to a radio broadcast about Bigfoot where the host is voiced by actor Giovanni Ribisi, who was also the cinematographer on the movie.
This chapter is the first to play in the movie. Because it picks up during a propulsive chase scene with no dialogue, itallows audiences to assume that The Demon is the serial killer and The Lady is his innocent victimattempting to save her own life by any means necessary.
The Mountain People
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 technically picks up shortly before chapter 3, following married couple Frederick (Ed Begley Jr.) and Genevieve (Barbara Hershey) through their idyllic morning in their mountain cabin before The Lady knocks on their door in distress. They offer her aid, but when Frederick tries to call the police,The Lady stabs him to death. She tries to avoid killing Genevieve, finding a comfortable place to trap her, but when Genevieve escapes and The Demon approaches with his shotgun, The Lady gives up on the woman and hides in a chest freezer.
“The Mountain People” is the fourth chapter in the movie proper. It comes at roughly the halfway point of the movie and beyond, andit is where the story fully tips its hand that The Lady is a murderer, though her full backstory has not yet been revealed.
Here, Kitty, Kitty…
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 ofStrange Darlingis another mostly wordless sequence, though the title “here, kitty, kitty…” is spoken multiple times by The Demon as he wanders the Mountain People’s cabin and shoots into possible hiding places for The Lady. The scene frequently cuts back and forth between his search and her flicking on a lighter inside an enclosed space before he shoots the chest freezer, discovering her whereabouts and knocking her unconscious.
[It] is meant to imply that The Demon killed Frederick…
“Here, Kitty, Kitty…” is the second chapter that is shown in the movie. At this point,the audience is still being misled to think that The Demon is a serial killerhunting down an innocent victim. The fact that he is hunting down The Lady while Frederick’s corpse lies in a pool of blood in the kitchen is meant to imply that The Demon killed Frederick, though chapter 4 later reveals that this was not the case. The audience is also unaware of exactly where The Lady is hiding in the house at this point in time, increasing the tension.
Who’s Gary Gilmore?
Chapter 6
After cuffing The Lady and calling a friend for backup, The Demon opts not to kill her so as not to get a worse prison sentence. She wakes up and delivers a monologue about how she doesn’t want to die, implying that she loves The Demon, only to bear spray him and bite a chunk out of his neck, killing him. When police officers Gale (Madisen Beaty) and Pete (Steven Michael Quezada) arrive on the scene,The Lady fakes being a victim of The Demonand Pete reluctantly allows Gale to bring her in for medical attention.
Gary Gilmore, who is referenced by The Lady in her monologue, is a real-life convicted murderer who requested execution by firing squad in 1977.
While the three of them are in the car driving away, Genevieve approaches the police, asking for their help. The Lady blows her cover by shooting the woman in the head andrevealing that she is the notorious serial killer the Electric Lady. She commands a panicked Gale to exit the car and flee into the woods and tells Pete to keep driving.
The final chapter of the main story ofStrange Darlingisthe only chapter to be presented in proper chronological order. Now that every detail of the characters and their motivations has been revealed, the story of their one-night stand gone wrong is allowed to come to a bloody conclusion.
The Electric Lady
Epilogue
While driving away, Pete asks The Lady why she kills people and she tells him she sometimes sees devils instead of people. She seems to see him as a devil in that instant and shoots him to death. While walking along the road, she is picked up by a woman in a truck. When she pulls a pistol on the woman, the driver spots this and shoots The Lady first. She then calls emergency services and begins driving The Lady to the hospital, butThe Lady dies from her injuriesduring the drive.
The epilogue ofStrange Darlingis the second and final movement of the story to be told in chronological order and is essentially an extension of chapter 6. It is most likely presented as an epilogue becauseit concerns the ultimate fate of The Lady rather than presenting the entwined stories of both her and The Demon.
Strange Darling
A twisted one-night stand spirals into a deadly game of cat and mouse when a relentless predator chases an injured woman through the Oregon wilderness.
