A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Photo courtesy of Moviestillsdb

The vampire, a lonely figure bound to a life nocturnal on the outskirts of society, above mortal law but fearful of Christ’s cross, has bewitched the imagination of storytellers for centuries. Entrenched in the taboo — unholy life beyond death, the transgression of sexual mores and wantonly feasting on shared fluids — the vampire has continued to adapt to the times, from the 1920s silent expressionist horror in "Nosferatu" to Anne Rice’s 1970s Southern Gothic chronicles of baroque homoeroticism among the Creole gentry. Considered to be the first modern vampire story, John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre” was inspired by Lord Byron during the same fateful summer in Geneva where Mary Shelley produced “Frankenstein.” Polidori, who died by suicide at age 25, tells of a clearly Byron-esqe undead vagrant named Lord Ruthven, a wicked seducer and murderer of diffident debutantes. “The Vampyre” would go on to influence Bram Stoker, but also American authors like Uriah Derick D’Arcy, who in 1819 penned “The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo” where vampirism is the magic that allows enslaved West Africans to rise up against the oppression of the slave trade. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” the 2014 directorial debut by Ana Lily Amirpour, takes the vampire myth to modern-day Iran, with influences that are far more Tarantino than Polidori. A slick Persian-language romance between a working-class James Dean-inspired stud and a too-cool-for-school vampire art girl, Amirpour’s stylish spaghetti western is both comic and comic booky, like if “Twilight” had been made by the sardonic girls of Daniel Clowes’ “Ghost World.”

 

Boondocks Film Society presents “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” on Jan. 21 along with a happy hour and music performance by Simone White at Nancy Marine Studio Theatre at The Warner in Torrington, Conn.

Latest News

Father Joseph Kurnath

LAKEVILLE — Father Joseph G. M. Kurnath, retired priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, passed away peacefully, at the age of 71, on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

Father Joe was born on May 21, 1954, in Waterbury, Connecticut. He attended kindergarten through high school in Bristol.

Keep ReadingShow less
Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

Keep ReadingShow less
Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

Keep ReadingShow less