Not since the days of Dorothy and the wicked witch has an irrational devotion to a pair of red vintage shoes led to such dramatics and mayhem. This is indeed the catalyst for horrific events in Uncork’d Entertainment’s Bloody Marie; a gritty drama that delves into the underbelly of Amsterdam’s red-light district.

A famed cartoon artist in desperate need of inspiration for her next graphic novel, now seeks her next big break at the bottom of a vodka bottle; another vehicle for curing her depression after losing her mother. This is our titular character, Marie Wankelmut (Susanne Wolff). But if Marie can manage to survive a deadly mix up with the local sex-workers of the city, involving a pair of shoes, Marie’s might get more inspiration to pull from creatively than she had originally intended.

This indie film love child of lurid affairs, and the danger of sex work, is the second in Wolff’s recent work that has stunned critics and attained much praise from notable publications state-side. For anyone concerned as to the tricky nature of an alcoholic drama, Wolff stears very clear of glorifying the constant intake of alcohol. Instead, Wolff imbues Marie with such a moving kind of melancholy, that her hellish dependency on booze will evoke the feeling that one shouldn’t be watching her trials.

Bloody Marie is rather repetitive for a considerable amount of its runtime; lending itself to a larger statement on addiction and depression in place of long-lasting character development. Perhaps it is not the most flashy of horror stories when compared to other entries in the foreign genre catalog, such as Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen’s beautifully haunting Rift, but if your tastes are geared toward that of some good old-fashioned misery porn, Bloody Marie is unquestionably up your alley.