In 2014, writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour burst onto the indie scene with her self-described “Iranian vampire spaghetti Western” A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. The film — which was Amirpour’s feature film debut — took the Sundance Film Festival by storm and garnered near-universal praise from critics. Since the film was in Persian and Americans who love vampires and feminism and subtitles are a silver of a Venn diagram, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night had only a small theatrical release. But those that saw it loved it and it’s since become a cult favorite. And, fortunately, Amirpour made enough of an impression that she didn’t fall off the precipice into obscurity that befalls many female directors.
Her next project, The Bad Batch, takes place in a dystopian wasteland in what used to be Texas until it was walled off to house undesirables. The trailer doesn’t specify what constitutes someone as part of the “Bad Batch” but things for the denizens trapped inside are dire enough that cannibalism has taken root. The film stars Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, and Suki Waterhouse and, based on the trailer, the aesthetics of The Bad Batch couldn’t be further from the slinky, seductive palette of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. However, Amirpour’s thematic commitment both to strong female leads and mashing together genres you never expected looks like it remains strong. The Bad Batch is surely the first cannibal romance film created, yes?
[Via Syfy Wire]