The Gospel According to “What the Hell Is This?”
Pollyanna McIntosh’s Darlin’ (2019) is that rare horror sequel that manages to be both self-important and spectacularly confused. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a sermon delivered by someone who’s clearly possessed — earnest, sweaty, and screaming about feminism while juggling decapitations. Billed as a “social issue horror film,” it’s less “The Exorcist meets The Magdalene Sisters” and more “what if Carrie attended Sunday school run by a chainsaw?”
This is the third entry in the Offspring/The Woman trilogy — which already sounds like a family reunion no one wanted an invitation to — and picks up with feral teen Darlin’ (Lauryn Canny) being abandoned at a hospital by her cannibal adoptive mother (McIntosh). From there, it’s all downhill, metaphorically and literally, since the movie’s moral compass tumbles straight into a pit of bleach, baby blood, and bad Catholic metaphors.
Plot? Kind Of.
Darlin’, raised in the wilderness on a steady diet of raw meat and trauma, gets hit by an ambulance — which is probably the most coherent moment in the film. She’s taken to a hospital, then dumped at St. Philomena’s Catholic boarding school, where the staff, led by a smarmy bishop (Bryan Batt), attempt to “civilize” her.
This is not a good idea.
Darlin’ is pregnant, feral, and believes her unborn baby is the Devil. The bishop, meanwhile, is a pious predator who believes he’s God’s gift to underage victims. The school itself seems to operate under the motto: “Faith, obedience, and wildly inappropriate metaphors for purity.”
While all this is happening, the Woman — still feral, still cannibalistic, still rocking the “wilderness chic” look — embarks on a blood-splattered journey through civilization to retrieve her daughter. She befriends a group of homeless sex workers who, by the film’s midpoint, probably regret that decision more than any life choice they’ve ever made.
The film builds toward a climactic church massacre where hypocrisy is exposed, the bishop gets impaled like a marshmallow, and childbirth happens right on the altar — because subtlety is for cowards.
Feral Girl Interrupted
Lauryn Canny does her best with the material, which is saying something, considering she spends half the film covered in mud and confusion. Her performance oscillates between haunting and hilarious — imagine Tarzan having an existential crisis while trying to figure out how to wear shoes.
McIntosh, reprising her role as the Woman, still looks like she could rip your throat out with her teeth — and you’d thank her for the cinematic commitment. The problem isn’t her acting; it’s that her character is written like a feminist symbol who wandered out of a cannibalism cult and into a theology lecture. She murders people with righteous fury, but it’s unclear whether we’re supposed to cheer, cry, or ask for an exorcism.
Bryan Batt’s bishop is the film’s only truly effective monster — a smiling, child-preying hypocrite who’s more chilling than any demon. He’s also so cartoonishly evil that when his hand gets bitten off, you almost wish Darlin’ had gone for the head.
And then there’s poor Cooper Andrews as Nurse Tony, the gay nurse with the emotional range of a Disney sidekick who wandered into a Saw movie. Every time he appears, you think, “Finally, a likable character!” And then you remember where you are, and brace for the inevitable trauma.
Religious Symbolism, Now With Extra Blood
If Darlin’ has one consistent theme, it’s “organized religion is bad, but feral cannibalism is somehow worse.” McIntosh tries to critique patriarchy, abuse, and hypocrisy within the Church, but she does it with all the grace of a baptism performed in a blender.
The film throws symbolism at you like communion wafers at a food fight: babies as purity, blood as rebirth, the church as both womb and tomb. Every scene screams “MESSAGE!” while the audience quietly screams back, “We get it, please stop yelling!”
And yet, for all its preachiness, Darlin’ never quite figures out what it’s preaching. Is it pro-woman? Anti-church? Anti-hygiene? Who knows. It’s like a horror sermon written by someone who’s just discovered feminist theory on Tumblr and decided to express it through violent midwifery.
Horror or Hallmark?
The tone of Darlin’ is an unholy mess. One minute, it’s grim social commentary; the next, it’s a grindhouse revenge flick; and then suddenly, it’s a Lifetime movie about motherhood and redemption — if Lifetime aired on Shudder and was edited by a fever dream.
The gore is there, but it feels oddly muted, as though the film is embarrassed by its own brutality. The kills are half-hearted, the scares predictable, and the pacing sluggish. For a story about a feral woman tearing through civilization, Darlin’ moves like it’s wading through molasses blessed by a priest.
And then there’s the dialogue — a haunting mix of melodrama and nonsense. At one point, Darlin’ prays for her unborn baby’s soul, then immediately drinks bleach. That’s not subtext; that’s detergent poisoning.
The Woman Returns… and Forgets Why
The biggest disappointment here is the titular Woman. In The Woman (2011), she was terrifying — a symbol of primal female rage and uncontainable wilderness. In Darlin’, she’s reduced to a side character with less screen time than a nun’s rosary. She appears, kills a few men, bonds with sex workers, and then disappears into the fog with a baby strapped to her back like a deranged Mary Poppins.
It’s supposed to be poetic, but it plays like a deleted scene from The Walking Dead where everyone forgot their lines.
The Ending: Hail Mary, Full of Blood
The climax takes place in a church — because where else would you stage a birthing scene featuring a cannibal matriarch, a lesbian nun, and a murdered bishop? Darlin’ goes into labor while the Woman impales His Unholiness with a flagpole. It’s equal parts shocking, stupid, and strangely satisfying, like watching The Sound of Music end with a machete fight.
By the time the Woman strolls into the sunset with the newborn, you’re not sure if you’ve witnessed empowerment, madness, or a very aggressive PSA about prenatal care.
The Message That Ate Itself
McIntosh clearly had ambition. She wanted to make a statement about patriarchal abuse and the corruption of the Church. But her movie drowns its own message in blood and bad pacing. The feminist rage is real — and deserved — but it’s buried under clunky symbolism, inconsistent tone, and a script that can’t decide whether it’s crying for justice or chewing on it.
It’s like The Exorcist if Regan wrote the screenplay herself halfway through puberty.
Cinematography: Fifty Shades of Mud
Visually, Darlin’ is impressive in moments — the forest scenes have a grim, fairy-tale quality — but once we enter the boarding school, everything turns beige and fluorescent, like an asylum for the colorblind. The camera lingers on Darlin’ like she’s a misunderstood art installation, which would be fine if the editing weren’t so jagged it feels like a demon possessed Final Cut Pro.
Final Confession
Darlin’ is a sermon screamed through a megaphone, a feminist fable trapped inside a low-budget splatter flick. It wants to be bold, transgressive, and empowering — but ends up being a slow, confusing, occasionally nauseating meditation on why some trilogies should’ve stopped at part two.
Lauryn Canny gives it her all, and Pollyanna McIntosh deserves credit for swinging big. But sometimes, no amount of righteous intent can save a film that bites off more social commentary than it can chew — even if it’s covered in holy water and cannibal feminism.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 flagpoles through the bishop.
Because Darlin’ isn’t so much “The Power of Woman Compels You” as it is “The Power of Editing, Please Help.”
