worldsofdarkblue

Mister Rogers.

That's it, really. He's sweet and charming - except when he turns psychotic every half hour or so.

And he does resemble Fred Rogers - at least in his haircut and in his little smile.

Good Lord, I'm being told that my "review" is too short. What an asinine rule. Okay, then, let's fill it up until the robot is happy - Joey looks like Mister Rogers. No, really - he really does. I thought it was Mister Rogers acting in this movie. Honest, I really did. I just couldn't believe Mister Rogers was so buff. But his haircut is pretty unmistakable. No cardigans, though. I guess that's - enough characters typed. Bye.

Set in an oil industry ghost town-like city in Iran, this movie, directed by newcomer Ana Lily Amirpour - an American of Iranian descent - is highly reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's early style. Interestingly, in an interview between her and legendary producer/director Roger Corman on the DVD extras, she claims she's not much of a fan of Jim Jarmusch. But as virtually everyone who studies film has pointed at the stylistic similarity, she is taking it as a compliment. Good idea, Ana.  

Like Jarmusch's work, the movie is shot in atmospheric black and white - and it works beautifully. The dialogue is all Persian (Farsi) - even though the movie was shot in America, standing in for Iran - and is subsequently sub-titled. However, this does not work against the film (whose strength is its visuals) at all, as the dialogue is at all times minimal and slow, thus making the reading easy and unobstructive to the fascinating camera work.  

So, it's a horror movie. It's principal character is a Persian woman vampire - who stalks the town, robed in a black chador, which is quite an unsettling shadow to behold standing 10 feet away from a potential victim late at night. The events exist within a kind of imagined Iranian underworld of pimps, hookers, drug dealers and street urchins. Our vampire watches this dark town, at times slowly riding a skateboard down the street! When she interactswith people, she is unblinking, mostly un-verbal, and seems to be at all times appraising their circumstances and their worth.  

Aside from the beautiful blocking shots and photography, a high point of the filmis its use of sound effects, music (which sometimes references Morricone-like spaghetti westerns) and an impressive soundtrack of mostly modern pop music.  

Any criticism of this movie (though it'smore praised than not) seems to center around it being "style over substance" and "too slowly paced". Well, it is moody, that's for sure - and maybe too slow for many of today's horror fans, that's true - but there's no arguing that its greatest strength is its style.  

Using classic ratings, I give it 3 1/2 stars. Quite a different take in the vampire canon - I haven't enjoyed a vampire-themed movie this much since 2010's 'Let Me In'. Very impressive for a director's first feature.  

Oh - and one more thing - there's a kitty cat in the movie - prominently, which tempts me to raise the rating to a full 4 stars.