Highly stylized and oozing self-conscious cool, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night somehow sits on the cusp of being overwhelmed by gimmicks without ever completely succumbing. Shot in beautiful black and white by director Ana Lily Amirpour, the film looks spectacular, transforming a sparse, unwelcoming setting into a brooding, immaculately shadowed horror landscape. And in her chador wearing vampire she’s given us a suitably iconic antagonist. Influenced just as much by classic westerns as it is by the dialogue-lite stylizations of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, this is a vampire love story that never over plays its hand. An atmospheric, mesmerizing debut.
