Love Lies Bleeding Review: BFI Flare Festival 2024

Be gay do crime: Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian are lovers on a revenge mission in Love Lies Bleeding

Lou (Kristen Stewart) manages a run-down gym in middle of nowhere 1980s New Mexico. When bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian) stops by on her way to a competition in Las Vegas the two women strike up an erotically charged relationship. As Lou helps Jackie train for her contest, they make plans to leave town together and never look back.

The plan is complicated by the fact that Lou is reluctant to leave town before rescuing her sister Beth (Jena Malone) from her marriage to abusive husband JJ (Dave Franco.) Jackie too soon finds herself mixed up in a violent situation as she crosses paths with Lou’s father (Ed Harris in a ridiculous wig) – a local gun runner and crime boss – and before long the two lovers are inadvertently leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

Love Lies Bleeding is the second feature from writer/director Rose Glass, whose debut feature Saint Maud was one of the most talked about films of 2019. The British filmmaker further explores her fascination with psychological body horror and the grotesque in this pulpy but subtly shifting story that flits between romance, thriller and disturbing fantasy.

Glass has crafted an uncompromisingly visceral film filled with enough blood, guts and gore to leave audiences flinching. It feels distinctly grimy and unglamorous, from the sweaty gym that you feel as if you could smell right through the screen, to the array of ratty mullets the cast are sporting, Love Lies Bleeding doesn’t just feel grounded in reality but rather hyper realistically gross.

And for all that the visuals might disturb, it’s the sound design that’ll really make you feel uncomfortable. A film concerned with the transformation of the human body, it’s soundtracked by a misophoniac’s nightmare – endless cracking bones, squelching muscles and too wet mouths. I couldn’t help but notice someone in front of me at my screening who had to watch most of the film with their fingers in their ears – sound designer Paul Davies has really put the ‘audio’ into ‘audiovisual experience.’

While it may disgust in places Love Lies Bleeding also has an undeniably stylish visual language, it’s a pulsing neo noir that has influences from Tarantino to Verhoeven with a side of John Waters. When paired with a synth heavy Clint Mansell soundtrack it at time feels like it could be a Nicholas Winding-Refn movie, yet it’s sudden and surprising plunges into psychotic fantasy make it something starkly different.

Glass’s combo of bone crunching gore and horrific imagery paired with dark humour and magical realism create a language all of her own and cements her place as one of the most unique voices working in cinema today. Some of Love Lies Bleeding most absurd or fantastical moments are sure to turn off as many people as they win over, yet I for one can’t help but celebrate such audacious filmmaking.

A truly engaging and entertaining story, this is a film that plays well to a packed-out room. It’s impossible not to have a physical reaction to Love Lies Bleeding, from wincing and retching at its most brutal moments to whooping at silly one liners and sniggering at oddball humour – this already feels like a cult classic and a future main stay of midnight screenings in repertory cinemas everywhere. Love Lies Bleeding is a disgustingly good time.

Love Lies Bleeding screened during the 38^th BFI FLARE: LONDON LGBTQIA+ FILM FESTIVAL 2024 at BFI Southbank. It is released in the UK on 3rd May 2024