Scary Movie Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Title: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Release Date: November 21, 2014
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Production Company:Logan Pictures | SpectreVision
Summary/Review:

A girl walks home alone at night, but she’s a vampire on a skateboard so she’s quite alright (and looks so very cool!).  Described as “The first Iranian vampire Western,” the movie is set in an industrial region of Iran known as “Bad City.”  The movie was actually filmed in California so it gets past the Iranian censors and can depict romance and sexuality as well as drug abuse, prostitution, and other unsavory activities.

The Girl (Sheila Vand) appears to be a feminist figure as she seems to only feast on bad men, including Bad City’s pimp/drug dealer, and warns a young boy to behave.  But this is more than a revenge fantasy, and is a movie of how two people can form a connection despite dealing with their past and facets of their identity they don’t want to acknowledge.  The Girl forms a bond with Arash (Arash Marandi) a young man struggling with his father Hossein’s (Marshall Manesh) heroin addiction and the general malaise of living in a dead end town.

There’s also a cat (Masuka).  The cat is very important.  The highly-stylized movie draws on German Expression and spaghetti western influences, with a little French New Wave thrown in.  The  movie is visually striking and conveys a lot of emotion with very little dialogue.  The soundtrack which mixes Western indie rock with Iranian artists is also quite good.

Rating: ***1/2