We’ve covered wide-release films and indie darlings already in this series of reviews, but early on I promised some deep cuts (pun intended, given the subject matter), and it’s time to roll one out on the mortuary slab.

At first glance, there’s no earthly reason “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” should work. It’s yet another vampire movie–as if the genre wasn’t already saturated with them. It’s low budget. But the biggest potential demerit is that the film hails from an Iranian production company. Iran isn’t exactly known as a hub for creative expression, especially for works that feature a female lead.

This is going to be doomed, right? Relegated to reviews on obscure websites and possibly made the fodder of YouTube channel mockery.

Prepare to be surprised. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” manages not just to succeed as a legitimately atmospheric and haunting portrayal of a young female vampire, but also as a study on isolation and the need for finding love in an oppressive existence. When horror gets this right it makes for a memorable movie, from low-budget indie films like “Lo” to blockbusters such as “Interview with the Vampire”.

Sheila Vand plays the Girl, our titular vampiress, as she goes about her bloodsucking business on the black and white streets of Bad City. Much in the same way that having to shoot in Spain ended up enhancing Sergio Leone’s magnificent westerns, the Iranian streets that stand in for Bad City almost become a character of their own. There’s a sense of quiet desperation and harshness in every shot. Into these the Girl strides with supreme menace until she encounters Arash (Arash Marandi), a light-hearted class clown type who inspires her to something other than homicide.

Some horror buffs might be put off by the film’s tonal shift in scenes that see the Girl so desperately attempt to be a normal, young human woman. She longs for personal, intimate human contact and to be seen as something other than a monster, and–in a nod to one of the film’s themes–throws off her hijab and dons western-style makeup. But only in her lair, mind you, out of sight of the rest of the world. This is shockingly brave stuff to see from a film produced in Iran.

But that’s this movie for you. Everything is brave. Everything makes absolute use of what it has available to work with. It’s the kind of work that requires no prerequisites to enjoy other than, perhaps, good taste (dare I suggest that?). Ana Lily Amirpour, the writer and director of “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”, was determined not to let a small budget get in her way. She has delivered a great film, and one wonders what she could accomplish with more resources at her disposal.

All this high-brow gushing is not to say there aren’t legitimate scares to be had. There’s pure tension and dread aplenty, as is appropriate to horror in general and the vampire subgenre in particular. The Girl manages to be both monster and sympathetic lost soul. That’s the core of Bram Stoker’s trope, updated for the 21st century. Thus, this subtitled Iranian film shows more understanding for the vampire-as-allegory than nearly every recent Hollywood attempt at the same subject matter. I highly recommend it, perhaps with whoever you choose to share your coffin with.

But despite all this talk of isolation, sometimes horror thrusts loving families into danger, too. And we’re going to visit just such a scenario in our next review, covering a film straight from the country where everything is trying to kill you.