October is here, and with Halloween just around the corner, comes the prerequisite attention given to the horror genre. The long standing joke at Goggler HQ is that I do not like horror movies. But it is important to note, that I actually do like horror. It’s just that I have a very tight definition of what horror is. This year, I have taken it upon myself to expand my horror repertoire, and this is the first in a series of reviews that I am writing of scary movies that come highly recommended. This is Bahir’s Four Weeks of Horror.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, the debut feature by Ana Lily Amirpour, tells the story of a lonesome vampire stalking the streets of an Iranian city (named Bad City) as she encounters other members of this slightly absurd and desolate locale.
Dead bodies lying in a ditch, a James Dean-esque love interest with a 50s Ford Thunderbird and matching era appropriate hairdo, a heavily tattooed drug dealer and pimp, an underground drug-fuelled nightlife, and our titular girl, credited only as Girl, the vampire in a black chador. This is what Bad City is, and these are the people that make it up.
About a Girl
To try and explain what happens in this film is to miss the point of it. We see Girl kill a few people, not kill others, meet a prostitute, meet Arash — our blue jeans and white t-shirt love interest — maybe fall in love outside a power plant, then leave town together. That may seem kind of boring but I found myself utterly enraptured by the world that was being built in front of me. The vampire here doesn’t seem to be the point. Girl’s unnatural predisposition feels like just the entry way into this world that Amirpour wants to show us. This Bad City. Where bad things happen and everyone just shrugs it off.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a vampire movie, but it is also a story about a girl, trying to find her place in a bad world, filled with drugs and prostitutes and pimps, doing what little she can to stop the cycle of violence and misogyny. And falling in love with the wrong guy. Which in this instance means a guy who isn’t a vampire like her.
Mad World
There’s a lot going on in this film. Being in black and white, in Persian, set in a fictional Iranian city, as a spaghetti Western with Americana vibes, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a very layered film. To classify it as a horror, however, would be doing it and its director a massive disservice.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night isn’t scary. It isn’t a story about a vampire who feeds on the innocent or the guilty. This is a slice of life movie that just so happens to be set in a bad town with a vampire roaming the streets.
So does this fit into my definition of a horror? It really doesn’t. But I am glad I finally watched it. The black and white aesthetic is beautifully treated, with Girl in a black and white striped t-shirt and a flowing black chador, and the night scenes lit by street lights or car headlamps. There is a real vibe that flows all throughout this film.
Should you watch A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night? Absolutely. But be warned that you are not going to be getting a horror fest. Watch it for the mood. Watch it for the world that Amirpour is building. But mostly, watch it for Sheila Vand as Girl, skateboarding down an empty street at night in the street lights, with her black chador flowing in the wind like the wings of a bat.
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