- Directed by Mickey Keating
- Written by Mickey Keating
- Stars Lauren Ashley Carter, Sean Young, Brian Morvant
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 18 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MXgy3NdhI
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A lonely girl’s violent descent into madness. Darling takes a job house sitting for a strange woman, but the house has a history that is more than she bargained for.
Commentary
We start out in black-and-white and stay there for the whole film. It gives a kind of timeless, artsy look to a movie that would otherwise be pretty dull. There are long stretches with no dialogue and very little action of any kind; just Darling looking at various places in the house.
It’s a little vague on when this takes place. There’s no technology shown more advanced than an old-fashioned landline phone, and the clothes and hair indiciated maybe the 60s or early 70s. It is shot in a style very reminiscent of “Psycho,” so we’ll say it’s supposed to be contemporary to that.
It’s weird, it’s slow, but it is effective. Very creepy.
Spoilery Synopsis
We begin with gritty black and white images of New York City.
Chapter 1: Her
The Madame pays Darling and leaves her phone number. Darling will be house-sitting for her, and she mentions that the house has bad stories and a bad reputation; she’s honestly surprised that a young girl like Darling would want to stay there alone. Someone once killed themself there. Alone now, Darling wanders through the big old house. Credits roll.
After the credits, she spends a great deal of time exploring the beautiful yet creepy house looking at things. There’s one room that she’s not able to get into. Night falls. Darling dreams about climbing over the railing and jumping to her death. The next day, she goes out shopping. She drops a necklace on the street and when a man picks it up for her, she has flashes of him killing her; he apologizes for scaring her and walks away. She then follows him home and stares ominously at his building.
Chapter 2: Invocation
Darling’s back in the house, and she starts hearing noises in the hallways. She notices a light is on in the forbidden room. She goes out to the balcony again, leaning out over the drop as if it’s calling her there.
The next morning, she continues to have mental flashes of that man from the street. She goes to a coffee shop and seems completely zoned out. She might just be losing her mind.
Chapter 3:Thrills
Darling goes out for the evening. She waits in the dark outside the man’s door. The man comes out, and she follows him. He goes into a bar named “Thrills.” He sees her and thinks she looks familiar. They talk, and she hears voices in her head. She goes into the restroom and screams at herself in the mirror. She goes back out to the man and invites him over to her place.
He’s well aware of the history of the house and that it’s supposed to be haunted. He tells her about an old lunatic that used to do conjuring rituals in this house. He talks while she goes into the kitchen, grabs a knife, and returns to stab him to death.
Chapter 4: Demon
She finishes off the man, who still isn’t quite dead yet, and then cleans up the mess. She leaves the body in the bathtub and then goes to sleep. She dreams about the body getting up in the night and attacking her.
Chapter 5: Inferno
She undresses the dead man and finds a hacksaw and hammer. She goes to work, ignoring the ringing telephone. She then has a long breakdown in the clean bathroom.
Chapter 6: The Caretaker
Darling finally answers the phone. The lady finally got hold of her reference, Dr. Abbott. Darling lied about her experience. ”Dr. Abbott says I’m OK now,” she explains. The woman asks her to leave the house, and Darling tells her that she killed Henry Sullivan again. Darling says, “I think I’ll become one of your ghost stories now.”
She tries again to get into the forbidden room. She takes the scissors to all her clothes.
The police bang on the door with another girl. They come in with a key and look around. They find the bag of neatly-packaged body parts. Darling, in the meantime, goes up to the roof and jumps off the balcony.
After the credits, we see the Madame again, hiring a new caretaker for the house…