If you paid me $1 million, I wouldn’t be able to tell you why this movie is named Somebody’s Darling. I had no clue what this movie was about going into it, and after it ended, the title still made no sense. Somebody’s Darling isn’t a 1950s romp or a story about a lovable shelter dog named Darling just looking for a home. Instead, it’s a horror movie about a fraternity. The head of a fraternity named Christian (on the nose) falls for a young college girl named Sarah and the supernatural secrets about his fraternity start to show.

Christian is the real cool frat guy who can get any woman he pleases but Sarah is different and it takes 2 full scenes for her to flirt back with him and kind of lead him on. I don’t mean that in an anti-PC way either. The film does a horrible job of establishing that Sarah’s study partner is actually her boyfriend, so initially as a viewer, I was like, “Dang Sarah why are you out flirting with the head of a frat with a boyfriend at home?”  The writer and director do such a horrific job of establishing her character early on that I felt like I watched a few deleted scenes. It’S clear that the intention of the filmmaker is to make Sarah and Christian work from a chemistry stand point. Her having a boyfriend serves no real purpose other than to make her initial actions very strange. It would’ve worked better if she had just been an independent college girl who didn’t want to be with Christian, as the boyfriend angle takes away her agency.

Let me be abundantly clear that this movie is trying very hard to say a lot about rape culture on college campuses. That is an important cultural discussion to have and could be more prominent in film. I think with a good script you could make a very good movie on these topics. Christian’s toxic obsession with a younger woman who rebuffed his advances is disturbing on a fundamental level, but as he becomes more unhinged and obsessed, his performance seems like it’s a parody. It feels like he’s in an improv class and was told to play a crazy person. Then in the end, rather than just be a typical thriller, there is a the conclusion involving supernatural elements and history of the frat that were hinted at throughout.

A topic like this is full of potential if a talented writer and director handled it. In the hands of this director though, it was just an unfocused mess with little structure that made no sense. I think he was trying to say something about the campus culture, but like any topic you have to make sure the message is focused and clear. Somebody’s Darling was just a disaster on that front and I would recommend everyone to skip it.

Written by: Dan Moran