By Lauren Hunter (she/her)

Imagine Thelma and Louise crossed with Wolverine plus a touch of murder… and you’re only scratching the surface of Love Lies Bleeding.

The opening gala for this year’s Glasgow Film Festival, from second-time director Rose Glass, is as subtle as it is provocative, tender as it is bloodcurdlingly violent – and it is this constant juxtaposition which its stars, Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, play to its greatest triumph.

Lou (Stewart), is a gym manager in tough American suburbia, surrounded purely by toxic masculinity. In this sense she is brutish, hardened, and forced to fight for her own. That is, until Jackie (O’ Brian) hitches into town on her way to a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas. Quite simply, Jackie is utterly disarming, and when Lou shares some performance-enhancing drugs from the gym with her, the pair begin a relationship.

Their dynamic is intimate, visceral, tender – in many ways it’s a love letter to women’s sexuality and one of the film’s strongest assets. However, the honeymoon period soon ends when they find themselves embroiled in Lou’s family’s criminal fraternity, and their world implodes into a mess of violence, suspicion, and (a LOT of) blood.

It certainly isn’t one for the faint-hearted. From one minute to the next you’re confronted with beauty to horror – and trust me, it really is *very* gory – so be prepared to be peeking through your fingers. But this is almost always immediately offset by darkly clever comic moments which set the film apace and masterfully maintains its levity. There are some weird science fiction-esque moments towards the end, which in total honesty don’t really add much as the film is frankly already wild (in the best way), however in other respects by that point caution has been all but thrown to the wind and the characters’ main focus should just be on getting to the end credits alive.

Although it’s set in the late 1980s and in spite of its absurdity, there’s a lot in this film which resonates in today’s world. Ultimately it’s a feminist reclamation and proclamation of strength, an unashamed celebration of women’s sexuality, and a thought-provoking commentary on what happens to one’s sense of power when you never previously held it but are then given a taste. You’ll need a lie down in a darkened room after all that.

Love Lies Bleeding is bizarre, beautiful, horrifying, enthralling – and the perfect start to GFF’s 20^th anniversary. It’ll command every second of your attention.