Horror Movie Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

From the opening scene of bodies lying in a ditch of the fictional Bad City in Iran this movie goes downhill at such a pace that I consider it to be one of the most boring horror movies I’ve ever had to sit through.

There are plenty of unique things going for A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, the setting, the artsy way that it is filmed, the cast but none of that means anything when it results in such a sub-par movie.

Bad City is a ghost town; those that live there seem to be drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes & one solitary dude trying to better his life. Arash is being held down though by his addict father & the local dealer who takes his one love as payment, his car.

Desperate to get his car back he steals from the rich family he works for & goes to the dealer’s apartment to offer payment for the car. Unknown to him the dealer met a woman while out & about that night. He takes her back & attempts to seduce her in some of the most cringe-worthy scenes ever. She stays silent throughout…which might seem mysterious if it wasn’t so damn obvious she is a vampire.

The vampire stalks the streets of Bad City killing seemingly at random. She says nothing & picks her targets when they are alone as well as randomly robbing a young boy of his skateboard, just so she could skate around instead. One night she meets Arash returning drugged up & drunk from a party where he suffered rejection. He is lost but after hugging her she takes him back to her home & they just hang out. Yeah, that’s about it…

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a love story as Arash decides this strange woman is someone he wants but the question is can she fight her vampire urges & actually love him back?

I would be amazed if you cared by the end, I didn’t.

It’s a boring premise that has been done before & offers nothing new within the vampire genre. The silence of the vampire will irate by the end & Arash’s lack of sense regarding her is equally frustrating. Sure they tease the possibility that he might have an inkling at the end but it goes nowhere and just ends.

The acting isn’t bad, it’s just unmemorable. You’ll remember more the amount of times you checked to see how long was left than anything else. The sense of atmosphere is unimportant when nothing is happening, long shots of shadows & silent streets just add to the constant niggling thought that this is less about entertainment & more of an art project.

One of the worst horror movies I’ve had the misfortune to sit through. It is nowhere as smart as it thinks it is & offers nothing fresh within a tired genre.