Tag: Sheila Vand

Women Who Kill is another indie film I would have never seen if, let alone heard about, if it wasn’t for the Spirit Awards. This is only a cool thing to say if I ended up liking the film, and so hey, good news, yay Spirit Awards!

There are a lot of interesting things to say about the film, most of which I will say at the end, but probably one of the best aspects of the movie are how many women characters are in it. I would say there are only two guys who have speaking roles in the whole film that matter to the story in a slight amount. Basically this is a film directed, written by, produced by, and starring a woman, about women who like killer women.

For those of you who like women a lot, you will probably like Women Who Kill.

On the other hand, if you like women, maybe you don’t like them killing?

Lesbians. Podcasters. Stereotypes. Morgan (Ingrid Jungermann) and Jean (Ann Carr) run a podcast show called, Women Who Kill. It is specifically about serial killers, who happen to be women, and that is it. Because Morgan and Jean are fascinated by serial killers, want to talk about them, want to go super in depth about them, and people love hearing about them.

Unrealistically, they are sort of famous for this podcast and are recognized on the street by people who love their podcast. A rarity, given that podcast is rarely visual, but hey, lets run with this fantasy.

Morgan and Jean used to be lovers, but ended it after sometime and still maintained their working relationship. Jean has moved on and is dating a man now, but Morgan is alone. Heck, another of Morgan’s exes is currently about to get married too. Everyone is happy. And then Morgan meets Simone (Sheila Vand). At the local farm/store co-op that Morgan works at (more stereotypes). She is hot and into Morgan, which is great. They hit it off, but still, Simone is a bit weird and it is hard to figure out why.

That is, until Jean puts the idea in her head. Maybe Simone is a serial killer. Maybe she is the daughter of a serial killer and is continuing her mom’s path. And maybe she wants to kill Morgan, as an ultimate meta prize and is waiting for the opportunity to strike. Or it could all be coincidences!

Also starring Annette O’Toole, Deborah Rush, Grace Rex, and Tami Sagher.

On the third hand, if you like women, maybe you do like them kissing other women.

Women Who Kill, early on, quickly found its stride with witty dialogue, funny moments, and likable different characters. It is fun to cheer for Morgan and Jean, making it harder to see their faults when they get to the points of real conflict.

Simone’s character definitely stands out in the world they created, seemingly always shining (or the opposite of shine in some instances), just to pop out. Most of the surroundings just seem dreary, but not Simone, so her entity begs questioning and adds to the mysteriousness.

I thought for sure I would end up loving this movie, but I thought the end started to unravel what started out as a fun clever story. It didn’t follow through too well, and honestly, sort of hated the ending.

But Women Who Kill is a movie that definitely celebrates women. Of the two men roles, one of them is playing a role of house husband who adds nothing to the film and is practically ignored, which is a hilarious role reversal of a serious problem in movies.

Still worth a watch, give these ladies some of your money.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to see A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Shit, I have a hard enough time remembering the title. When mentioning it out loud I have been calling it A Girl Walks Home At Midnight. Close enough right? Not at all.

I knew it was supposed to be scary, but I also knew it was extremely stylized and also with subtitles. So it is one of those films I need to be in the right mood for in order to even begin to appreciate it.

I like new and exciting things! But potential super artsy foreign films are obviously one of my weaknesses. They usually don’t involve cool super heroes or things blowing up.

Well, I guess she is sort of in a costume.

AGWHAAN takes place in a make believe town called Bad City in Iran. You can tell it is make believe, because it is called Bad City.

It is a very small city, not a lot of people involved, but enough people for drugs. There is only one gangster asshole, Saeed (Dominic Rains), a pimp and drug dealer. He is a bad dude, and he has gotten Hossein (Marshall Manesh) hooked on drugs! That is bad for Hossein, for many obvious reasons, but even worse for Arash (Arash Marandi), our hero(?) and Hossein’s son.

Arash had his car taken by Saeed because his dad owes money. That suchs for Arash, who worked hard to get that slick sexy car! Oh, and Saeed also is abusive to his women, like Atti (Mozhan Marnò).

Which is why he gets fucked up by a vampire! The Girl (Sheila Vand) totally goes all vampire on him! You know, the one who walks home alone. At night.

The Girl isn’t just some random blood sucking fiend. No, she has morals. She killed Saeed because he was a bad dude. And there are more bad people in this small town. But is Arash a bad dude or his he just desperate?

Hopefully she knows for sure before she sucks his blood too. Also featuring Rome Shadanloo.

Arash is a James Dean looking motherfucker. I don’t mean the male porn star of the similar name.

AGWHAAN is definitely an interesting film, and an even more interesting acronym. There is both a lot and only a little that goes on, so what does end up happening has to be paid attention to for the film to drive home its message.

The message being that it can make a pretty killer soundtrack.

That and the visuals were the best parts. Each frame was shot meticulously in order to heighten you senses to what is going on. AGWHAAN is not a standard horror in any shape or form. There are no jump scares, no real scares at all, just several tense moments. Quite a few longer shots are done in this film, often with just characters staring at at each other, with dialogue at the very minimum.

At the same time, it is easy to understand that someone would say not a lot happens in this film. It is true. It can feel quite long and drawn out with not enough gusto behind the scenes to keep your interest. So I see it in two ways. If the film can keep your interest the whole time, you will go on a pretty unique experience when it comes to modern vampire films. If it doesn’t, it will feel like a lot of wasted potential, with some cool shit that occassionall happens.

Which unfortunately for my street cred, the latter is how I see it. Some cool shit happens, and a lot of other drawn out scenes. Oh well. It is still a stylistically beautiful film, the black and white do a lot of favors. Just not my cup of blood, so to speak.