Part of the reason for the great financial crash of 2007 was bad lending practices. Basically, anything that walked through the door on two legs and not drooling would be given a home mortgage, regardless of the risk. It seems like such irrational behavior has also infected movie producers: Since the success of the "Twilight" series, any chancer waving a script that contains the word "vampire" seems to be getting greenlighted.

In the case of first-time director Ana Lily Amirpour, it seems like her angle was " 'Twilight' for hipsters" — you know, a cool vampire in a Jean Seberg striped Breton shirt with a Lillian Gish bob, smoking and skateboarding and playing '80s new-wave analog records in Warholian real time. Amirpour initially shopped around a striking eight-minute short that contained the essence of what she was going for: bold, hyperrealistic black-and-white cinematography and a comic-book locale known as Bad City, where an Iranian cast act out a human-boy-meets-undead-girl story amid a backdrop of junkies, pimps and assorted lowlife.

It turns out, though, that eight minutes' worth of ideas is all she had. The finished feature relies almost completely on style over substance and a tendency towards painfully looooong takes — think Bela Tarr directing "Sin City" and you'll be getting close.