A foreign vampire movie. Gotta love Netflix.
OK, it’s in black and white. A dude just stole a cat. He just walks a lot during this opening. Some kid asks him for money, and he’s like I ain’t got no money. Some old guy is a junkie doing drugs and owes money to this dude. This drug money collector dude is dressed fantastically. The old guy is our original guy’s father. The drug dude wants the dude’s nice car. He has been trying to pay this dude but to no avail. So dad the junkie just cost his son his prized ride. He is pissed and punches a brick wall. The brick wall won. Our guy is in a fancy place and supposed to fix something. This hot chick with something on her nose, like a bandage, is talking. He wants her out of there so he can steal her expensive earrings, but says that it would be inappropriate to be in the same room with her under her parent’s roof.
Our dug dude is in his new ride and pays a girl for a BJ. Nice! After she’s done, he wants her out. She wants her cut, and so he goes and pulls her out and tosses her on the ground and drives away. Fair enough. Sometimes, you just want a BJ and no more bullshit afterward. As a matter of fact, get the bullshit out of the way, then get the BJ so you can just chill after.
There is some girl jamming out to some pop music in her room, and she is pretty, big eyes, nice hair. Our drug dude walks past a girl in a cloak and looks at her briefly, and they just keep walking. He stops, turns around and she is already looking at him. He is trying to pick her up, and he brings her home. No shit. Good for him. I mean, she’s probably the vampire, but good for him. She is cute. This fucking guy, he lists weights, he is all flash trying to show off for her while she is not impressed with his tracksuit, and aquarium and cocaine. His tattoos, I can’t wait to get pics of him. He slides his finger near her lips, and she shows him her fangs. But then she seductively sucks his finger and then bites it off. The tough guy is a cowering pussy now believe it or not. Annnnd she gets the neck bites. Our main go finds his car, but obviously he’s not alive, but he calls. Arash is the name of our main dude. Vamp is stealing all his good shit and looking through his CD’s. This is sooooo Iranian. Arash waits by the gate and sees Vamp leave. Arash goes and knocks on the door, let’s himself in. Arash steals his car keys back and gets the briefcase with the money, drugs, and gun.
Arash comes home and takes care of his old man. Arash plays with his pussy. Vamp is in a tub and we just got a nice long look at her tits. Wowza, I liked that. I think Aresh just dumped druggie’s body in a little valley full of dead people. Why is there a small valley with like 20 dead bodies? Aresh is selling drugs, paying some bills and shit. Hot rich chick took off her bandage, and her nose is tiny and cute. Dad is having bad withdrawals.
We have Hossein who is trying to talk to a hooker I guess, and he just wants to talk, but she won’t until he gets more money. Typical woman. I bet this guy treats objects like women. Uh oh, Hossein is walking parallel to vamp, and when he stops, she stops and then she mirrors him. This is great and creepy!! He runs away when she won’t talk to him. Oh man, that scene was worth it. Now vamp is following the boy. The boy stops for a snack, and she’s gone. Now she is in front of him, and she gets in his way, and he runs. Well, he looks back, only to run into her. Yup. She asks if he’s a good boy. She tells him not to lie, and she asks again, he says yes, and she gets in his face and asks again and shows him her fangs and says that she can take out his eyes. She asks if he understands, he does, so she tells him to be good and lets him run away, but he left his skateboard, so she’s happy.
Aresh asks his dad if he wants soup, and he’s like no, I need medicine, whining like a douche.
These 2 strumpets are at a party and want X off of Aresh, and he gives it for free. He is dressed as a vampire. The one is nose girl I think. She insists on him having X too. This seems like a great idea as you are now a drug dealer. If you’re dealing, don’t use your own shit, fool. She is incredibly pretty.
SHIIIIIIT. I am looking on IMDB, and they actually label these characters, the junkie, the pimp, the prostitute, the princess. SO pimp is dead, Hossein is the junkie. The princess is the hot one at the party with longer hair. SO much easier!!!
Aresh is fucked up, he’s outside staring at a street light. Vamp comes skateboarding down the street, and stops and checks him out. He finally notices her. He tells her that he’s lost and wants to know where they are, and she tells him Bad City. Is this like Sin City? Hahaha, Aresh is like, I live in Bad City, this doesn’t look like Bad City. He approaches her and jokingly says that he’s Dracula, and then he tells her he won’t hurt her. She is just staring him the fuck down and follows him. He wants to know why she is there, why both are there. He takes her hand and tells her how cold she is, so he gives her a big hug. He tells her that they should sit, so he plops down, but she won’t sit here. She says that her place is close and she can sit there. Allllllright. He goes to get up, and he can’t, he has to sit. So she gets the skateboard and pushes him on it. Holy fuck, this movie is winning me over. Back at Vamp’s place, time to put on a record, and he is laying on her bed just fucked. He gets up and starts leaning up on her from behind as some like 80’s sounding music plays. So that scene lasted for minutes.
Now somebody is out dancing with a balloon. This is an interesting film. The next morning, Aresh tells his dad that he was with a girl, he doesn’t know her name, her family, nothing. His dad asks him if he’s become an idiot now. Our prostitute is out for a stroll at night, see the car, and keys it. Cue Travolta’s spiel in Pulp Fiction. Well, she happened to do so while Vamp was 20 feet away. Vamp follows this Pro, and she finally asks why she is following her. Vamp shows her jewelry. Pro asks where Vamp got it from. Pro brings her to her place. Pro offers her a piece of fruit. She says that she won’t be a teacher, it’s hard work what she does, you know, sucking dick and all. Vamp says that she has been watching her at night and that Pro hates what she does and tries to not even remember shit. Vamp asks Pro what she is saving her money for. Pro asks if she’s a thief, she says no, and she goes back to her skateboard. She bites a bum. She sees a note from Aresh to meet him the next day.
So they meet at this power plant. He has some food and brought her a burger. How thoughtful! She isn’t eating the burger, so he is getting nervous because everybody likes a fucking burger. He is trying to find out her name, or the last long that she listened to, which was “Hello” by Lionel Ritchie. So he reaches in his car and turns on the music. He says that he knows something else about her, and he touches her face and says that her ears aren’t pierced. He gives her the earrings that he stole. She pulls out a safety pin. Time to do this. He asks if she is sure, and she agrees. When he does it, we briefly see her fangs. She insists that he does the other. He says “What lucky earrings” and then goes for the kiss and she says that she has done bad things. He’s like, so have I. This is the type of romance I can get behind. Unfortunately, she walks away. He is walking too. Uhmmm, your car sir.
Dad is at home, doing his withdrawals, talking to the cat and yelling at pictures about Aresh’s mother. Dad just knocked all the pics on the floor. Aresh is pissed. He gives his dad a bunch of drugs, says to take it and get out of his place. Maybe it was just money. Oh, and to take the cat. Poor cat. So Dad, who is is Hossein, but I like to call him dad, he gets his drug on and is at the Prostitute’s place. He wants her to dance for him. She dances nice. He wants to have a good time with the needle, and she doesn’t want to, but he insists. He ties her with his belt, injects her, then injects himself.
They lie down. Vamp shows up as the cat watches. Vamp drags Dad off the bed. She bites him as Pro looks on. So the girls leave, and Vamp drags his body, and leave it somewhere, but the kid looked out the window and saw them.
Back at Pro’s place, she asks Vamp to leave and to take the cat too. The kid brings Aresh to see the body and there are other people around. Aresh sees that it’s his dad and reacts as expected. Aresh asks the boy if he saw anything or anybody, but Aresh knows he isn’t telling everything.
Vamp wakes up to find Aresh outside her door, and he just walks in. He tells her that they have to go, for her to pack her things He tells her that he can’t stay in Bad City, so just pack up and get in his car and go with him. He asks her not to leave him, not to leave him alone. She takes off her top while not facing him, changes her shirt. She grabs a bag and starts putting things in it. She puts on some music as the cat walks in. She grabs all of her jewelry that she has acquired off of dead people. She put her cloak on. She grabs the cat, and she is ready.
They are now driving at night. He pulls off on the side of the road. He gets out and stands in front of the car with the lights on him. He looks back at her. She looks sad. The cat is pumped though. He gets back in and it’s awkward. The cat is cracking me up. He reaches in the dash and gets out a cassette tape. They slowly look at each other, and they have a moment. He starts the car up and they take off.
End film
I slept on this, wanted to see if I liked it as much the next day. I think people should always take a day to really think about the film before doing instant reactions, but I am just as guilty as anybody in that regard. This film was beautiful to look at. Would this fall under style over substance, or is it too indie, too artsy? Yes, I can absolutely make that argument, but I won’t. This was a really great effort by Ana Lil Amirpour, who is the director. Even though I didn’t always understand what the songs were saying, and there were parts that may have hung on a few beats too long, it was incredibly effective. More importantly, I don’t think I will forget about this one any time soon. This is like a modern-day Suspiria for me. The story wasn’t thrilling, but it was good. The music was really good, and it looked beautiful. Yes, it is not in English, so you will have to deal with subtitles, but that never bothered me in this film. The whole ending, when Aresh gets out of the car, I loved it. That was the moment, he was going to run away from his demons, but before he could try, he had to decide if he could make a commitment to the person who killed his dad. It just worked on a lot of levels for me.
Final rating: 7.2 What can I say? I really liked this one. It was an original take on the vampire genre, to an extent. Yes, I am aware of Let Me In and Let The Right One In. I may have to tackle them.
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