While the suffocating sound design might call to mind Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST and Lysa Thatcher’s Sandy reminds the viewer of any number of Hitchcock’s imperiled blondes, Cecil Howard’s NEON NIGHTS is at its core occupied with American rot and the dishonest way we have defanged folklore into something disposable and without danger. So, while there is a kinship with Friedkin and Hitchcock, more prominent is the shared DNA with David Lynch and Matthew Bright.

If you’re looking for a simple narrative throughline, NEON NIGHTS will disappoint. It conveys ideas via mood and bold, impressionistic splashes. Tools frequently found in Lynch’s toolbox are present here, like twinning and a loving depiction of Americana that simultaneously makes the case for its harmfulness. If you insist on finding a single hinge that makes the whole machine work, it is a young woman’s psychotic break as she comes to terms with sustained abuse from her stepfather. But approaching the material solely through that lens is reductive and not in the viewer’s best interest.

That approach neglects the road-movie quality of the film. Moments here recall both FREEWAY and RUNNING SCARED: fairy tales presented as septic wounds and cautionary campfire horror.

In the horror-porn, old and new, that I’ve seen thus far, filmmakers are routinely adversarial to the audience’s arousal. Jamie Gillis can barely maintain an erection in CORRUPTION, where every scene is permeated by the leaden weight of obligation. People fuck because they have to; the film doesn’t want you turned on. In Bree Mills’ BIRTH, Casey Calvert’s cries of “make me a mommy” are defeated and lonely. Again, it rejects your arousal. Cecil Howard and screenwriter Anne Randall, however, do want you turned on in NEON NIGHTS. They want you to interrogate the root of that desire. As Lysa Thatcher bounces from one improbable situation to another, experiencing escalating emotional torment, why are we aroused? When the film reaches a climax that calls to mind TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, it is a relief to finally be given the freedom to be repulsed. Yet the audience is left with the lingering sensation: I went along with this. I helped get us here.

It would be easy to dunk on Thatcher’s stilted performance, but it accentuates the alien quality of the world around her and the reality of her danger. In the absence of having seen her other work, I choose to read this as an intentional choice, akin to Nicolas Cage or early Shannon Whirry.

Two of my favorites turn in killer performances: Jamie Gillis is positively reptilian as the abusive stepfather, and Veronica Hart is obviously having a ball as an evil femme fatale. The whole affair is shot with the dreamy quality of the giallo boom, while the soundscape acts as a direct line into Sandy’s interiority. The combination of a theremin-heavy score and extended drops into total silence locks us inside her head, while even Francesca Verne’s soul-disco theme song conveys a sense of lyrical isolation and longing.

Is this a pornographic LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD? ALICE IN WONDERLAND? Something else entirely? The only certainty is that to stare at it for any length of time is to examine your reaction to art, and to confront what gets you going.