Be careful reading the reviews on this one, I watched this with the advantage of having never seen 'repulsion' and it must be said I seldom if ever watch a movie in black and white especially if modern.Having said that I'm an avid Horror fan and taken at face value the movie delivers quite well. It is slow, (ie: at times bludgeoningly so) but is very atmospheric. The wife and I both watched it all the way thru which says much as we often will gong movies before the halfway point (mutually.Desperately striving to match movies of a bygone era it does not always fall short, a good watch, probably more-so alone at night and during a distant storm...There is an additional scene midway thru end credits don't forget to stay that long if you make it to the end.

This movie sucks. Flat out. It's a shame to think about how much time and effort was put into this complete miscalculation of a movie. I understand it's a low budget film, but if you're trying to make a movie that catches peoples' attention and gets them wanting more, you have to realize that a movie like this is not the way to do it.Borrowing heavily from Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," this "film" focuses on Darling, a girl with no name that's hired to watch over a giant, mysterious apartment while the owners leave town. Apparently some supernatural stuff happened in the apartment and it's caused multiple other apartment-watching girls from the past to commit suicide. So yeah, of course she takes that job, it seems like it has a good reputation.I swear, I watched this movie with subtitles on (as I do with all movies) and the caption "Eerie music playing" showed up like ten times. This movie was hilarious in its attempt to be tense and scary, when in reality it is an extremely mundane and unbelievably boring film. The main actress (a beautiful woman, I'll give her that) blankly stares her way through what feels like six hours, and this is a 78 minute film. The director clearly intended her to be a character that's as mysterious as the setting, but when she is given no character, barely speaks a word and stares into the camera for a grand total of fifty-five minutes, there is no takeaway there. The movie hopes that the musical score will make you feel scared and uneasy, but nothing happens in the apartment that would warrant an uneasy feeling. Through static, uninspired camera compositions, you don't feel like something scary is about to happen; you actually feel like this is the worst student film that ever won Best Prize at the high school film festival. I was in utter awe at how far they dropped the ball on this one. There's even a completely pointless subplot where the main girl stalks a man and goes on a date with him only for it to end horribly wrong but at that point during the movie, I was already clocked out and asking for my money back, even though I rented this from a library. When the "twist" is revealed that she's actually just an insane girl, it's not a surprise because you already knew that from her staring at everything for minutes at a time!Please, stay away from this movie. It's a practice in endurance, and it is not an easy one. If you watch it just for the cute actress, fine, do that. She's cute. But if you're expecting a well-made thrill-ride with genuine horror and tension, you're better off watching "Halloweentown" for that. P.S- there's an inkling of a great idea near the end where Darling opens "the room," which is the room that the homeowner told her to stay away from at all costs at the beginning of the film, but that, of course, goes absolutely nowhere and I hate this movie so much.

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 film is essentially a hodge-podge of classic 60s horror references and imagery mixed with modern-style jumps and scares to keep you on your toes. Does it always work though? No, it doesn't. While most of the jumps are well-coordinated and add an essential level of terror to the atmosphere, there were others that felt impatient and cheap, deflating the room of suspense and tension. I still give this 8 stars because the cinematography is incredible and Lauren Ashley Carter is a true star. The screenplay is also quite good, with the story broken up into several chapters for the audience to easily understand her descent into madness. Overall, this horror film made me and my friends scream as well as kept us up at night, which is the goal of the film.