A cliche-juggling feminist vampire tale by any other country of origin would still hit a dry socket. We never learn where our impoverished hero (Arash Marandi) picked up enough spare cash to acquire a cherry Ford T-Bird or the amount of vigorish that’s owed Bad City’s local pimp. Iranian-American writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour is more consumed by style than substance; all that matters is Marandi is young, beautiful (he’s billed as “the Iranian James Dean”), and, together with our titular love-starved garlic-avoider (Sheila Vand), knows how to pose before a camera. Worth seeing for those too young to remember how beautiful black-and-white ‘Scope looks when spread across a theater screen. Closer in spirit to the gaily amateurish plotting of The Lost Boys than the Lynch-Leone hybrid Amirpour was aiming for, this comes closest to putting an end to my longstanding claim of never having seen a bad Iranian movie, particularly one filmed in the San Joaquin Valley. (2014) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.