Director: Rose Glass

Stars: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco

The spring of horniness continues apace with this frantic, sweaty ‘roided up drama from UK director, Rose Glass.

It’s 1989 and Lou (Stewart) is the put-upon manager of a gym in New Mexico. An early sequence has Lou unblocking a filthy toilet, setting out Glass’s almost Genet-like celebratory dive into filth and squalor.

Lou’s head is turned when Jackie (O’Brian) stops by at the gym, en route from Oklahoma to a bodybuilding competition. Soon they are fucking frantically, and Lou invites Jackie to stay at her place.

Their problems begin when Lou realises that Jackie is working at a local shooting range for her dad, Lou Jr. As well as owing the range, Lou Sr. is a fearsome local crime boss. Then Lou’s sister Beth (Malone) turns up with serious injuries caused by her abusive boyfriend JJ (a reliably loathsome Franco), and Lou decides to take matters in her own hands.

Modern takes on B-movies can off-puttingly self-conscious and contrived affairs, while the nods to David Lynch, via the hallucinatory editing and vivid colour scheme, and David Cronenberg, through Glass’s vivid rendering of Jackie’s burgeoning physique, (augmented with remarkable sinew-stretching sound design), will be familiar. But the film is executed with such brio and the pacing so propulsive that the viewer will be happy to go on the journey, although the more violence-adverse may tune out.

Ultimately, the luridness doesn't quite sustain the picture’s 105 minute running time and there are structural issues in the third act, but the chemistry between Stewart and O’Brian is intense and palpable.

Love Lies Bleeding is released on 3rd May

David Willoughby

Follow David on Twitter @DWill_Crackfilm