A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

"The first Iranian Vampire Western."

2014 1h 41m EN

👍

6.8

SOLID

★6.8TMDB · 987

HorrorRomance

Synopsis

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In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

“The first Iranian Vampire Western.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Sheila Vand
The Girl
Arash Marandi
Arash
Marshall Manesh
Hossein 'The Junkie'
Mozhan Navabi
Atti 'The Prostitute'
Dominic Rains
Saeed 'The Pimp'
Rome Shadanloo
Shaydah 'The Princess'
Milad Eghbali
The Street Urchin
Reza Sixo Safai
Rockabilly

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writers: Ana Lily Amirpour
Languages: Persian
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 40% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 12 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, shot by Lyle Vincent. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Bei Ru. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Alex O'Flinn shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Sheila Vand and Arash Marandi and Marshall Manesh carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "The first Iranian Vampire Western.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Ana Lily Amirpour directs. Lyle Vincent behind the camera. Bei Ru scores. Alex O'Flinn cuts. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in Persian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Earned back only 40% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
3Released 12 years ago.
4Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, shot by Lyle Vincent. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Bei Ru. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Alex O'Flinn shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Sheila Vand and Arash Marandi and Marshall Manesh carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "The first Iranian Vampire Western.".
9IMDB entry: tt2326554 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 10 themes, including "vampire", "loneliness", "black and white", "prostitution".

The technical file

Cinematography: Lyle Vincent
Original score: Bei Ru
Editing: Alex O'Flinn
Production design: Sergio De La Vega
Costume design: Natalie O'Brien
Makeup / hair: Jill Fogel
VFX supervisor: Mike F. Hedayati
Sound: Jay Nierenberg
Stunt coordinator: Alan Noel Vega
Runtime: 101 min · 1h 41m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,000,000
Box office: $395,000
Return: 40% of budget
Original language: EN
IMDB: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

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Ana Lily Amirpour

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What people are saying

badelf2026-07-16
★ 7/10
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 twist here is that she's kind of a nice girl - just not to bad people. Drug dealers, pimps, men who abuse women: these are her preferred diet. When she meets Arash, a young man with James Dean charm stuck in a dead-end life, something shifts. The film becomes a romance, or at least the ghost of one. Amirpour, who is a singer and DJ, created a really eclectic, and genuinely fun soundtrack. The sound design is playful and precise. It's essential to how the film works. Every sound edit is perfectly placed: cigarette inhalations crackle, the constant offscreen rumble of trains suggests at once the repetitive boredom of daily life and the possibility of a way out. Vand's performance anchors everything. Playing a non-communicative vampire could easily become mannered, but Vand finds the humanity in the monster, the loneliness in the predator. She makes you believe that a creature who has lived for untold years could still be surprised by kindness, still choose mercy over appetite when someone proves they deserve it. The scene where Arash, high on ecstasy and dressed as Dracula, encounters the actual vampire is both hilarious and oddly tender. This film requires patience. It goes in for long unbroken shots and deliberately paced scenes, and there are moments when the careful choreography tips into self-consciousness. But when it works, and it works more often than not, the film achieves something genuinely distinctive. It's a film about outsiders made by an outsider, a vampire story that uses the genre to explore loneliness, desire, and what justice looks like when the law has abandoned you.

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