You might know director Ana Lily Amirpour from her fantastic debut A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. A feminist vampire movie that turned the genre on its head, it felt refreshingly sinister, and put Amirpour’s name on the map. Her second movie, The Bad Batch, premiered at TIFF last year and will finally get a release this summer.

The Bad Batch has been described as equal parts Southland Tales, Mad Max, and Spring Breakers, and plays around with ideas of dystopias, cults, and cannibalism. Keanu Reeves stars as the cult’s mustachioed charismatic leader who takes in runaway Arlen (although kidnaps is more like it) and introduces her to this odd, violent society out in the desert.

The highly anticipated follow-up to Amirpour’s acclaimed directorial debut, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, THE BAD BATCH follows Arlen (Waterhouse) as she is unceremoniously dumped in a Texas wasteland fenced off from civilized society. While trying to orient her unforgiving environment, she is captured by a savage band of cannibals and quickly realizes she’ll have to fight her way through her new reality. As Arlen adjusts to life in ‘the bad batch’ she discovers that being good or bad mostly depends on who you’re standing next to.

The film didn’t get many glowing reviews out of TIFF, with many critics calling it thin and confusing, but if it looks like your thing, it may be worth checking out. Most directors suffer from a good debut but a bad second feature, and Amirpour is a great talent that we’ll hopefully see much more in the coming years.

The Bad Batch is slated for release June 23.

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