Director: Ryan Ohm
Release date: 2022
Contains spoilers
Whilst I think the film title poor, it feeds directly into this film’s pandemic setting – in Chicago during Covid-19 lockdown (shelter in place). However the pandemic, whilst referenced and (with its empty streets) the backdrop to the film, fails to be the primary narrative subject. The setting does, unfortunately, manage to obfuscate some of the acting – especially around primary actor Ashleymarie Jones, who spends a great deal of the film acting from behind a facemask.
In fact, this film is actually about relationships but we’ll get to that.
It starts with a guy (Chachi Sabate) out on the empty city streets. He realises that a couple in shelter are in coitus and peeps in on them. Withdrawing as his phone vibrates he tells the caller that he is just on a walk, denying the truth that he is having a cigarette to boot, and then sees a figure swathed in black, Eva (Ashleymarie Jones). She says that this is when he should run and he does, she follows, sometimes appearing ahead of him (this is the only example or hint of anything slightly supernatural/super-powered). Eventually she stops playing and catches him – as he fails to speak to an overworked 911 – and smashes his head repeatedly till he dies.
Hidden with the body, Eva speaks directly to us and this is a conceit within the film as she repeatedly breaches the fourth wall. She intimates that she only kills bad people – like the Peeping Tom. I remember thinking at the time that her bar was set really low, that whilst the guy was creepy, her rationalising his execution (essentially) did not actually measure to the severity of the crime. Compared to, say, A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night this feels more an excuse than an actual ethic code – we will return to this.
So she gets home and is dragging her victim, taped into black bags, into her basement flat when she is spotted by upstairs neighbour Ace (Michael Holding). He is trying to chat her up and get her to hang out when his flatmate Walter (Kyle Dodge) appears and spews down the stairs. This gives Eva her get out but she does agree to return upstairs after she has done a couple of things. Later, sat with Ace she tries to avoid food, has a vivid fantasy of killing him and then does acid with him. She wakes in bed next to him and quickly leaves but we hear him say that he knows what she is.
Thereafter he manipulates (through a combination of charm, pleading and blackmail) his way into her life. For herself she does find him strangely charming. They go out (sunlight is a myth in this) and he encourages her to feed on a homeless woman (Paisley Blackburn), but Eva says the woman has done nothing warranting an attack. She does speak to her, and this is where the bar is low; it is when the homeless woman assumes she was going to give her money and calls her out for not doing so, that Eva attacks her. This is not a bad person, just a desperate one and Eva’s bar is shown to be not only low but a salve for her conscience. That said Ace reveals himself, repeatedly, to have no bar and no qualms regarding murder – in and of itself that should be a red flag.
Because, all in all, this is a film about a toxic relationship and manipulation – interesting as the manipulated party in this case should have all the power. I do have to return to Eva’s bar and say she does try to maintain it. She has a bandaged, but oft bleeding and ugly wound on her arm and that is where she has fed on herself when she has not found the right type of victim, which can be read as self-harm. She also has a journal, in which she records rules (think Zombieland rules of survival). The vampirism can be spread and Eva refers to it as a condition.
The acting is varied in quality and, as I mentioned, the wearing of masks doesn’t necessarily help. There were moments that reminded me, tonally, of Habit but this was not consistent. The relationship between Eva and Ace, whilst odd in conception and power dynamic, felt pretty darn natural. Montage scenes padded the film (and one is fourth wall referenced as a part which we might want to avoid) and could have, for the most part, been discarded or curtailed without harming the structure. The film feels like a budget production, though that is not necessarily negative. This, I think, deserves 5 out of 10 (I did consider lower but it felt churlish and the exploration of toxicity is interesting).
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
In fact, this film is actually about relationships but we’ll get to that.
 |
| Eva masked |
It starts with a guy (Chachi Sabate) out on the empty city streets. He realises that a couple in shelter are in coitus and peeps in on them. Withdrawing as his phone vibrates he tells the caller that he is just on a walk, denying the truth that he is having a cigarette to boot, and then sees a figure swathed in black, Eva (Ashleymarie Jones). She says that this is when he should run and he does, she follows, sometimes appearing ahead of him (this is the only example or hint of anything slightly supernatural/super-powered). Eventually she stops playing and catches him – as he fails to speak to an overworked 911 – and smashes his head repeatedly till he dies.
 |
| feeding |
Hidden with the body, Eva speaks directly to us and this is a conceit within the film as she repeatedly breaches the fourth wall. She intimates that she only kills bad people – like the Peeping Tom. I remember thinking at the time that her bar was set really low, that whilst the guy was creepy, her rationalising his execution (essentially) did not actually measure to the severity of the crime. Compared to, say, A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night this feels more an excuse than an actual ethic code – we will return to this.
 |
| dragging the corpse |
So she gets home and is dragging her victim, taped into black bags, into her basement flat when she is spotted by upstairs neighbour Ace (Michael Holding). He is trying to chat her up and get her to hang out when his flatmate Walter (Kyle Dodge) appears and spews down the stairs. This gives Eva her get out but she does agree to return upstairs after she has done a couple of things. Later, sat with Ace she tries to avoid food, has a vivid fantasy of killing him and then does acid with him. She wakes in bed next to him and quickly leaves but we hear him say that he knows what she is.
 |
| Michael Holding as Ace |
Thereafter he manipulates (through a combination of charm, pleading and blackmail) his way into her life. For herself she does find him strangely charming. They go out (sunlight is a myth in this) and he encourages her to feed on a homeless woman (Paisley Blackburn), but Eva says the woman has done nothing warranting an attack. She does speak to her, and this is where the bar is low; it is when the homeless woman assumes she was going to give her money and calls her out for not doing so, that Eva attacks her. This is not a bad person, just a desperate one and Eva’s bar is shown to be not only low but a salve for her conscience. That said Ace reveals himself, repeatedly, to have no bar and no qualms regarding murder – in and of itself that should be a red flag.
 |
| self-feeding wound |
Because, all in all, this is a film about a toxic relationship and manipulation – interesting as the manipulated party in this case should have all the power. I do have to return to Eva’s bar and say she does try to maintain it. She has a bandaged, but oft bleeding and ugly wound on her arm and that is where she has fed on herself when she has not found the right type of victim, which can be read as self-harm. She also has a journal, in which she records rules (think Zombieland rules of survival). The vampirism can be spread and Eva refers to it as a condition.
 |
| dreams of killing |
The acting is varied in quality and, as I mentioned, the wearing of masks doesn’t necessarily help. There were moments that reminded me, tonally, of Habit but this was not consistent. The relationship between Eva and Ace, whilst odd in conception and power dynamic, felt pretty darn natural. Montage scenes padded the film (and one is fourth wall referenced as a part which we might want to avoid) and could have, for the most part, been discarded or curtailed without harming the structure. The film feels like a budget production, though that is not necessarily negative. This, I think, deserves 5 out of 10 (I did consider lower but it felt churlish and the exploration of toxicity is interesting).
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
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