A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

I'm...intrigued by this movie.

While looking up vampire movies for this week the combination of words including "skateboarding" and "vampire who targets bad men" was allllll I needed to hear to watch this film. And upon very brief research it only caught my curiosity more, it's an iranian director with persian speaking actors but it was produced entirely here in the States which is a feat so rare in movies to my knowledge cause you just don't hear of such a thing, then you have the mixing of vampire cinema and of all things western influences so I just had to know what this was about. Shot in pristine black & white this 2014 film follows a young working man come into contact with a strange silent woman who has a penchant for prowling the streets at night, and forms a fairly ambiguous relationship as bodies keep dropping. It's an undoubtedly small scale story for a small scale film funded by patrons on Indiegogo, with an almost silent film aesthetic at times no doubt enhanced by the grim photography. Yet even so they knew damn well how to shoot black and white footage, with excellent lighting throughout, ample atmosphere in day and night scenes, some may call it artsy at points but that never makes a movie lose points in my book. The western influence can be felt in certain shots and in one partucular instance for the score it's heavy on the Morricone style, which actually was pretty damn cool. Hell the score was surprisingly up my alley with a lot of moody dance music, some spaghetti western epic moments, and a truly effective atmopsheric droning that accentuated the horror. It's not psyche distorting or scream inducing horror but I won't lie to you for a single second, seeing this girl stalk the night in her hooded cloak terrified me enough! The look reminds me a lot of Countess Marya Zaleska but it has this wraith like figure to it as well that unnerved me in all the right ways. Massive props to Sheila Vand as our skateboarding bloodsucker who really does not have all that much dialogue but weaves an interesting character in barely 100 minutes, she can do terrifying or passive or even longing at periods that make this worthy of watching. Arash Marandi does a very good job as well almost seeming like a character from another type of movie before he crosses paths with this woman, and I found it fascinating how you never really knew what their relationship was. Are they friends? Are they romantically inclined? Could he be a midnight snack before the credits start rolling? You can't tell but I really really like that! The movie is a mood for sure and is far from your typical vampire fare, it wouldn't surprise me for a second to know if this has garnered a dedicated small cult fanbase over the last 12 years since it came out. And I'll tell you this, if a movie gets me to say "How is all this going to end?" it not only has my attention but has me invested. I give it 3.5 stars, 8/10, and with some luck we'll have a slightly late new release to look at before the best day of the year knocks on our door.