Directed by David A. Holcombe, who co-wrote the script with Rory Leahy and Nick Reise, this film, initially titled Yellow, draws inspiration from Giallo films. In America, it was rebranded as City of Lust, a title that perhaps doesn’t fully capture its essence. The film delves into themes of escape and identity, a journey that unfolds against the backdrop of a beauty salon.

Ariana (Margaret Grace) has a life she wants to escape, working in a beauty salon for Lyla, who seemingly abuses her at every opportunity. Her only friend is Renee (Kyle Greer), a trans woman who stands up for her and takes her to the clubs, where Ariana feels even more lost. When she returns home, the maintenance man Nikos (Antonio Brunetti) almost assaults her.

But when she gets to her bedroom, she finds escape through anonymous phone sex lines, looking for women to speak to. That’s where she meets Jackie (Jill Oliver), a woman who takes her into her bed and starts to fix her life. Well, I say fix in a way that means everyone who has done Ariana wrong shows up dead while our heroine appears near the bodies with no idea how she got there, clutching a tooth or a part of the person who has been killed. Ariana isn’t even her name. She changed it to escape her obsessed brother Danny (Derek Ryan Brummet), who has finally found her. And as you figure out how disturbed Ariana is, you also learn that he is the reason why.

This was sold as “a modern Giallo,” but besides the constant yellow lighting and a mask on the killer, it only has some of the familiar parts of the genre. I liked Grace’s acting, and I wanted to get behind her character as she gets over being closeted and gives herself over to someone else despite death being all around her. And yet the movie wants to be a workplace comedy and a slasher by the last half an hour, always unsure of what it needs to be. It knows the basic idea of a Giallo, but its heart does not beat for the genre; it’s just a tagline placed on a film to get people like me to watch it.

You can watch this on Tubi.