12 Incredible Horror Movies With No Jump Scares

With its fairly low body count, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night isn't necessarily the most frightening film you'll ever see. Marketed as an "Iranian vampire western," it isn't really trying to be. Ana Lily Amirpour's directorial debut instead focuses primarily on romance, human nature, and a whole lot of tension. In fact, the scenes which offer the most fear of death are actually three scenes in which nobody dies at all.

In one of these scenes, The Girl (we're never given a formal name for Sheila Vand's chador-wearing vampire) taunts a young street urchin while speaking in a monstrous voice. Her goal is evidently to steal his skateboard, but the viewer won't know this since the character never explicitly states her motivations for a single murder in the film. Two other scenes offer tension with similar threats that don't immediately come to fruition, although one such scene does foreshadow the final death of the film.

These scenes offer enough tension to give this vampire film something of a horror vibe, but the film's human characters contribute to the tone as well. One of the most uncomfortable scenes involves a man named Hossein binding a prostitute's wrists and forcibly injecting her with heroin.

Adding to the discomfort, the character is played by Marshall Manesh, whom fans of How I Met Your Mother will know as Ranjit. Seeing an actor known for such a harmlessly lovable character engage in such wanton cruelty is world-shattering, yet his ultimate fate still feels more tragic than deserved.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night may not spend a lot of time paying tribute to its horror influences, but the world of the fictional Bad City is still a dark one. This is made clear from the very beginning, when protagonist Arash saunters casually by a mass grave without giving it a second look. Perhaps this film won't truly scare you, but the uncaring world that the characters inhabit will still leave you with a certain kind of chill.