Cathex

This a modern vampire film that manages to create some excellent re- inventions of the Vampire genre while retaining its core elements. From the start the directors use of framing, tempo and scene- construction are simply brilliant. As well as this the cinematography is sometimes breath-taking.

There are several scenes which are wonderfully creative revisions of some classic vampire tropes, and the whole film has a sensitivity and aesthetic beauty of the kind rarely seen in modern film. The use of music, silence and movement gel perfectly to create something surreal, sexy and un-nerving.

It's a carefully constructed mix of film-noir, romance, horror and drama that comes out as some new kind of delightfully intoxicating cocktail. Not only this but Amirpour's screen-play and scripting are also excellent, making her a serious contender for directorial nobility in my opinion.

The one and only down side I found was in regards to the plot, which veered a little too far towards a kind of childish moralising on 'toxic masculinity' somewhat devoid of tact and subtext. Despite its masterful execution I felt the overall narrative could have been much more than the simplistic parable which it turned out to be.

On the whole, however, one of the best films of 2016.

This is an amateur film and parts of it are good, but for the most part it is still very amateur. Perhaps the best aspect is the directing and editing, which are probably good enough for mainstream film, but nothing amazing. The editing was well done, but again, fairly standard. Like any amateur film the acting ranges from reasonable to bad, but that's not exactly the directors fault given the limited budget.

By far the biggest problem is the script which at times is quite poor, most noticeably when attempting to pose deep, metaphysical questions. At times I could hear the voice of the director speaking through his actors, and this sounded inept. In amateur film the scripting and plot are perhaps the only things not really held back by a restricted budget, and unfortunately neither aspect was that good. The film failed to evolve a coherent sense of empathy for the main protagonist, it feigned emotion more than produced any and nothing ever really became that interesting or exciting. Some characters, most noticeably the cops, were little more than 2-bit cliché's, and there were quite a few moments which were unnecessary, melodramatic and time-wasting.

Having said that it's not unwatchable and as amateur film goes it's probably one of the better ones. But the director, in my opinion, is not ready to make feature length titles and needs to develop his abilities further, especially his screen-writing and scripting if he wants to write his own material. On the positive, however, I have seen Hollywood films that annoyed me far more and that's saying something.