She wakes. She walks. She kills.

At night, a woman (Ali Chappell) puts on her red overcoat and black gloves, reaches for a straight razor and heads out into the blackness to kill, baby, kill. And when she returns, she seemingly communicates with death herself (Thea Munster) who drives her to commit more acts of death and self-harm.

As each night ends, the viewer learns more about the life of this killer, a woman divorced from an abusive man, unable to see the daughter that she loves.

Directed, written, shot and even set decorated — with Chappell — by Chris Alexander, this is a film that is at once giallo and then an art piece, fitting somewhere between the two worlds way better than a much higher budgeted film like Amer can dream of doing. Yet unlike so many of the films within this genre, the emphasis is less on the murders and more on the pre and post states of the murderer.

I can see where some would see this as pretentious arty nonsense, but I love it. This is the movie that puts us into the mindset of the giallo killer while knowing nothing of the victims. They are just there to be grist for the mill, flesh for the flash of the blade, mannequins to do violence upon so that we can return to that room, the place where it seems that time stops and also stops making sense.

You can watch this on Tubi.