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JUST when you thought vampire films were dead in the water comes the first Iranian vampire spaghetti western to inject new blood into the genre. The image of a skateboarding bloodsucker in a chador cleaning up the streets of “Bad City” is pretty unforgettable.
Sheila Vand cuts a lone and creepy figure as The Girl who hovers in the background silently stalking her victims among the low-lifes in the ghost town.
There she strikes up an unlikely friendship/romance with hero Arash (Arash Marandi), an Iranian James Dean ironically dressed up as Dracula when they first meet.
Filmed exquisitely in black and white — California doubles for Iran — Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut feature is a stylish, haunting and atmospheric horror which is more Nosferatu than True Blood.
Stillness and immobility abound in a stylised world, reminiscent of Sin City, in which we learn little about the mysterious vampire girl’s background, although she finds a kindred spirit in the enigmatic cat of Arash’s father, who delivers a tour de force performance.
Slow-burning and disquieting, this is a film which lingers in the mind.
