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The trailer for Love Lies Bleeding features the dark synth pulse of Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. From the very first notes, I had a sense of what to expect from the film. The song is a queer anthem about the need to flee small town intolerance in order to really live. Its wailing apex expresses the feeling of giving in to impulses and feelings, and pursuing pleasure. It often scores scenes of hedonistic revelry; think dimly lit clubs, all sweat and writhing bodies. It is dark, gay and sexy – and so is Love Lies Bleeding.

The film is a violent neo-noir thriller by British filmmaker Rose Glass. Set in 1989, it tells the story of reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart), who falls for Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a bodybuilder passing through her small New Mexico town on her way to Las Vegas. Love, drugs and murder follow. Our reviewer, dubbed it a “visual and aural spectacle” that creates “a visceral cinematic experience, which is at once absorbing and repulsive”.

It’s a stylish (would you expect less from indie production company A24?) lesbian body horror that, once these star-crossed lovers find each other, moves at the speed of a truck that’s had its brake cut and a brick placed on the accelerator.

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