“Don’t ever fall in love, okay? It hurts.”

Somewhere in the world, David Cronenberg and Julia Ducournau are smiling simply because this film exists.

Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a neon-infused, surrealist, daydream of a film in which love and violence are so intertwined that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

When Richard Siken wrote “I’m sorry about the blood in your mouth, I wish it was mine” I can only imagine this was the type of feeling he was trying to evoque, a ion so guttural, so all-consuming that it makes one bleed and draw blood for the sake of others.

Glass finds sensuality in the grotesque, beauty in the horror, and a tender connection in the midst of brutality that gives the characters the strength they need to break free and run away together. Perhaps not into the sunset, but into the starry, desert night.