You Should Watch The Skateboarding Vampire Movie On Shudder
By Ted Pillow
Ana Lily Amirpour’s black-and-white arthouse horror is as beautiful as it is unsettling.
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, an Iranian-American arthouse horror stunner, is Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut film—a world of desperate people, skateboarding vampires, and scene-stealing cats. Despite its originality, it’s hard not to compare Amirpour’s astonishing film to the idiosyncratic work of auteurs like David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch.
The story takes place in the wonderfully named Bad City, a hermetically sealed world of afflicted oddballs. The hillsides are ravaged with oil drills, a ditch overflows with a consistently replenished supply of dead bodies, and many residents appear to be drug addicts. Arash (Arash Marandi) is a landscaper burdened by a destitute father, while The Girl (Sheila Vand) is a vampire with a somewhat discerning palate for victims. Both characters, driven to immoral behavior by their circumstances, are inexorably drawn together.
The film employs diegetic music beautifully, particularly a jaw-dropping scene set to White Lies’ “Death” that ranks among the best of the past decade. Its evocative black-and-white cinematography adds to its haunting, surreal quality. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is beautiful, exciting, and, most of all, ridiculously cool. Don’t wait to jump on Amirpour’s bandwagon—it’s a ride worth taking.
