A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

7/16/2026

Summary: 7/10: A stylized, slow-burning vampire Western and feminist revenge fantasy; Sheila Vand's mesmerizing performance and Amirpour's distinctive visual language and sound overcome occasional pacing issues to create something genuinely original. What happens when you cross a spaghetti western, a graphic novel, Iranian New Wave cinema, and a vampire film, then shoot it in black and white in a California town standing in for a fictional Iranian ghost town called Bad City? You get a genuinely original filmmaking voice. Ana Lily Amirpour's debut feature, promoted as "the first Iranian vampire Western," follows a chador-cloaked vampire played by Sheila Vand, who glides through Bad City's desolate streets on a skateboard, preying on men who mistake her silence for vulnerability. The t