8 Small Details You Only Notice Rewatching Donnie Darko

There's no getting away from it, after its rolled off your tongue a few times, Donnie Darko is a comic book character name. It is even addressed on screen by Gretchen.

The alliteration and the shoehorning of "dark" mean the character wouldn't stand out on the roll call of any superhero team. Though not obvious, Donnie does embody some of the core ideas of a comic book hero. He essentially has superpowers and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Despite being an outcast he manages to bring down the story's charismatic and manipulative villain Jim Cunningham.

Richard Kelly discussed the connection between Donnie Darko and comic books, alongside how this affected his directing:

"You write the movie and it's called Donnie Darko, it's a comic book title. You kinda think about the comic book tableau, I think when you're […] deciding how you're gonna shoot it, and for this you know, we have the marine layer and the mist, and he's looking out over the town of Middlesex, buried under the forest there and the mist, and […] he's summoned up to the mountain for some reason and he doesn't know why."