Though LOVE LIES BLEEDING is set in an 80s universe where the villains have mullets and the chain-smoking heroine listens to tapes to quit smoking, it is a thoroughly contemporary film, a wild, feminist narrative that finds emancipatory power in exploitation and horror cinema.

Director Rose Glass (SAINT MAUD) wastes no time: the camera glides through a red hellmouth into a starry sky and right into the beating heart of LOVE LIES BLEEDING, the run-down gym on the outskirts of town where Lou (Kristen Stewart) is the manager. Muscles are strained to the point of tearing, flesh jiggles, the music is pumping, and brutal signs foreshadow the action: PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING YOUR BODY, ONLY LOSERS QUIT. and DESTINY IS A DECISION. Then a stranger comes to town. Drifter Jackie (ex-cop, bodybuilder, and actress Katy O’Brian) only has one dream: she wants to compete in the Bodybuilding Championship in Las Vegas. She gets a job at the shooting range that is managed by Lou’s asshole brother-in-law JJ (Dave Franco). When Jackie shows up at Lou's gym, the attraction is instant. The women end up at Lou's that same evening, and Jackie never moves out. But the dream of new love, sex, steroids, bodybuilding and a joint trip to Vegas becomes a nightmare when JJ beats his wife - Lou's sister Beth (Jena Malone) - so badly she has to be hospitalized and Lou's revenge fantasies spread to Jackie, who carries them out brutally. Jackie and Lou end up in the crosshairs not only of the police, but also of Lou's father, the diabolical arms smuggler Lou Sr. (Ed Harris).

Together with Weronika Tofilska (director of “Baby Reindeer“), Rose Glass has written a dense B-movie that confidently brings together disparate genre elements. THELMA & LOUISE, ATTACH OF THE 50FT Woman, Roger Corman and the Coen Brothers contribute elements, and beneath the surface there is a simmering sexual tension and horror that is particularly evident in the soundtrack. LOVE LIES BLEEDING, however, is neither a pastiche, homage, nor the kind of guy’s film that primarily just wants to look cool. The film gets its power from an excellently constructed screenplay and the believably written characters with plausible problems. Nonetheless, it does look incredibly cool.

Hendrike Bake

Translation: Elinor Lewy