The First Iranian Vampire Western… Unfortunately
There are movies that sound so cool on paper you can practically feel the cult status forming before the first frame rolls. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is one of those movies. “The first Iranian vampire Western,” shot in black and white, with a feminist twist and arthouse swagger? Sign me up! Unfortunately, by the time the credits roll, you’ll wish the titular girl had walked home a little faster — or better yet, taken an Uber straight out of the movie.
Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut film is part vampire flick, part love story, and part cinematic mood board. It looks gorgeous, it sounds deep, and it means absolutely nothing. It’s like if Jim Jarmusch directed a perfume commercial for Hot Topic.
Welcome to Bad City — Population: Pretension
The film takes place in “Bad City,” an Iranian ghost town that appears to be inhabited by roughly seven people and a cat with better acting chops than half the cast. The setting looks like a cross between a David Lynch dream sequence and an abandoned oil refinery. It’s filmed in California, but Amirpour swears it’s Iran. Sure. And I swear this movie is a horror film.
Everyone in Bad City seems perpetually exhausted, like they’ve been waiting for the plot to show up. Spoiler alert: it never does. The movie spends most of its runtime staring moodily into space, waiting for someone to say or do something interesting. But this is an arthouse horror, so instead of dialogue, we get long, pregnant pauses and meaningful looks that mean absolutely nothing.
Our Heroine: The Girl Who Barely Walks
Sheila Vand plays “The Girl,” an unnamed vampire who stalks the streets in a chador, riding a skateboard like a melancholy ghost of Tony Hawk Underground. On paper, she’s a feminist icon — a predator who preys on men in a world that preys on women. In practice, she’s mostly just… bored.
She doesn’t talk much, she doesn’t smile, and she doesn’t seem particularly interested in her victims. Imagine Nosferatu if he had a Tumblr account. She glides through scenes like a goth Roomba, cleaning up the patriarchy one bite at a time.
Even when she kills, it’s somehow dull. You’d think a vampire biting off a pimp’s finger and draining him dry would be thrilling, but Amirpour shoots it like a slow-motion ad for existential despair. Every moment screams “meaningful,” which is arthouse code for “we didn’t have a second draft.”
Arash: James Dean in a John Carpenter Movie That Forgot to Start
Arash Marandi plays Arash, a young man who looks like he just wandered out of Rebel Without a Cause and into an indie film by mistake. He’s handsome, brooding, and stuck caring for his junkie father (played by Marshall Manesh, who seems genuinely confused about why he’s here).
When he meets the vampire girl, their romance blossoms in the most lethargic way imaginable. There’s a scene where he’s high on ecstasy, dressed as Dracula, and she literally carries him home on her skateboard. It should be electric — instead, it’s like watching two mannequins in a student film discover they’re both allergic to chemistry.
Their big romantic moment? Listening to music in silence while staring at each other. Riveting stuff. The emotional climax is when he pierces her ears with a safety pin — an act that’s somehow meant to be tender but mostly made me wish for a tetanus shot.
The Supporting Cast of Sadness
Bad City’s handful of supporting characters are all living metaphors in search of better dialogue. There’s Saeed, the sleazy pimp whose death kicks things off, Atti, the world-weary prostitute, and Hossein, the junkie dad who mistakes a cat for his dead wife (relatable, honestly).
The best actor in the film is Masuka, the cat, who appears in nearly every scene, judging everyone silently. If the feline had a thought bubble, it would read: “I survived Cats (2019), I can survive this.”
Each supporting character is a tragic symbol of decay, addiction, or regret. Unfortunately, the movie is so obsessed with being poetic that it forgets to make them human. Watching A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is like flipping through a stack of beautiful Polaroids — they look amazing, but there’s no story connecting them.
The Pacing: Slow Enough to Turn Vampires Vegetarian
Let’s talk about the pacing. Remember those films in film school that opened with someone staring at a wall for five minutes while ominous music plays? This entire movie is that wall.
Scenes drag on forever. The camera lingers on lamps, puddles, faces, cats, and skateboards like it’s allergic to cutting. You could take a nap, wake up, and still find the same shot playing. If this is a vampire movie, it’s one made for the undead — you’ll need to be immortal to make it through.
The Dialogue: Less Is Not Always More
The script boasts long stretches of silence, punctuated by lines like “You don’t know the bad things I’ve done.” To which the other person responds with a look that says, “Neither do the viewers.”
It’s minimalist to the point of parody. Every time someone finally speaks, you almost want to applaud. When characters do engage in conversation, it’s mostly to exchange cryptic one-liners that sound like they were lifted from an Instagram poetry account.
Example: “Are you a good boy?” “No.” “I didn’t think so.” Cue another two minutes of staring. Breathtaking.
The Aesthetic: Gorgeous but Hollow
I’ll give credit where it’s due — the movie looks stunning. The black-and-white cinematography is lush, moody, and dripping with style. Shadows stretch beautifully across the desolate streets, and the vampire’s chador flutters like a Gothic flag of independence.
But the problem with style this heavy is that it starts to smother the substance — or in this case, the lack thereof. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is so busy being cool it forgets to be scary, funny, or even coherent. It’s like someone watched Sin City and thought, “What if we removed all the action and added more ennui?”
The Music: Moody Tunes for Moody People
The soundtrack slaps, I’ll admit it. It’s full of Iranian rock, post-punk, and synthy sadness. Every track makes you want to buy a black trench coat and stare meaningfully into the distance. Unfortunately, the music often overshadows the actual plot.
It feels like Amirpour built the film around her playlist rather than her screenplay. If you’re going to make a vampire movie that doubles as a mixtape, at least let the beats drop before the audience’s patience does.
The “Message” (There Isn’t One, But Let’s Pretend)
Critics will tell you this movie is about female empowerment, loneliness, and moral ambiguity. Sure. And Sharknado is about climate change.
The Girl kills bad men, spares good ones, and skates through life detached from humanity. That’s not empowerment — that’s a vibe. The film wants to say something profound about gender and violence, but it’s too busy posing to actually commit. It’s a feminist vampire movie that forgot to grow fangs.
Final Thoughts: Aesthetic Without Appetite
At its best, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a beautiful piece of monochrome art. At its worst, it’s a two-hour fashion shoot for existential dread. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a vaporwave poster that says “FEELINGS” in Helvetica.
There’s no denying Ana Lily Amirpour has vision — it’s just buried under a mountain of style and self-importance. Somewhere inside this film is a great vampire story dying to get out, but it’s trapped in slow motion, clutching a skateboard, waiting for something to happen.
Final Verdict:
⭐️⭐️ out of 5.
A visually stunning yet soulless slice of hipster horror. Like a vampire on a diet, it bites, but never deep enough to draw blood.
