Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Year: 2014
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
While living in a small town, a series of strange accidents and deaths are soon found to be the cause of a female vampire looking to make waves in the community with her transgressive actions taking out those in the area she deems unworthy and forcing those left to figure out how to stop her.
Review:
On the whole, this is a decent enough if somewhat underwhelming genre effort. Where this one works the best is the rather fun and sometimes outright chilling atmosphere generated here which is quite effective overall. With the eerie silence of the area, deserted streets, and crumbling ruins despite this being depicted as a prosperous oil-mining town generate a background that's quite easy to get lost in as the arthouse aesthetic employed creates a series of striking visuals throughout. These are mostly to gain the employ of the fear associated with the vampire preying on the populace as she takes out all manner of junkies, drug dealers, and other victims on the shady side of the law through a wholly effective series of scenes that mimic all variety of genre tropes and appearances.
This helps to make the attacks quite fun as well. With the majority of this one focusing on the inability to recognize the danger she represents due to the social construct being broken and everything becoming quite transgressive as a whole, there are some dramatic attacks here with her appearing to honor the culture's heritage before turning around and taking them out with the vampiric abilities being seen as a way to strike back against the oppressive nature. Basically, every victim here or scenario plays off that factor significantly, whether it be posing as a prostitute to lure solicitors, taking victims from a strip club, or a junkie looking to score off a dealer which manages to offer up some great scenes when they realize what's going on.
Beyond this, though, there's not a whole lot else going on here. That's mainly due to the experimental arthouse style featured here which forsakes any form of linear storytelling for a bizarre series of visuals that are admittedly gorgeous and hypnotic but don't help make the story any clearer. It's incredibly easy to get lost in the numerous sidestories and characters in this town, especially during the middle half where the majority of this takes place as it comes off that the focus is on the transgressive qualities more than the actual storytelling. That leaves the film somewhat dull at points as this one changes focus away from the story to go for its arthouse sensibilities which could be a big factor to get over.
Overview: ***/5
A generally decent if overall underwhelming genre effort, this one has enough going on for it that there’s enough to be worthwhile even without taking the cultural importance out of the equation even with the flaws in here. Give it a look if you’re curious about this type of film or are just general fans of the style overall, while those who are not interested in this particular approach should heed caution here.
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