Darling | Film review - Repulsion-style horror thriller

Not to be confused with the Swinging Sixties movie that won Julie Christie an Oscar, Darling is a psychological horror thriller from prolific genre filmmaker Mickey Keating, maker of 2015's paranoid sci-fi chiller Pod and 2016's grindhouse gorefest Carnage Park.

The plot finds a troubled young woman (Lauren Ashley Carter) cracking up after moving into an old, possibly haunted, Manhattan mansion as its caretaker. In a brief cameo, Blade Runner's Sean Young plays the wealthy woman who hires her.

The black-and-white cinematography is very striking, as is the gamine, wide-eyed Carter, her expressive features working overtime amid some hallucinatory effects. In look and mood, the movie recalls Roman Polanski's 1960s classic Repulsion. but the pace is so deathly slow that it never matches its predecessor's disturbing power.

Certificate 18. Runtime 73 mins. Director Mickey Keating

Darling debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on 28 February and is available on DVD from Soda Pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MXgy3NdhI

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.