Gym boss Louise (Kristen Stewart) falls for a bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) and feebly covers up a crime in this thriller they should have called Dumb Belles.

Kristen Stewart lesbian bodybuilding revenge flick is an instantly popular premise, but there is little substance around it unless you count all the steroids. Like the characters it starts strong but doesn’t know what to do with itself, more interested in developing action-movie muscle than their motivations.

There is also something quite uplifting about that as a mark of progress, having reached the point where LGBTQ+ films can be dumb mainstream schlock too. Despite it dominating the screen time, the characters’ sexuality is refreshingly irrelevant to the plot. The film is more interested in the retrosexual, a sweaty homage to ’80s exploitation cinema that delivers sex and violence ad gymnauseam.

This flashy, fetishistic style makes the movie closer to Kill Bill than Thelma & Louise, which is presumably where Louise gets her name. In any case it does little to enhance Stewart’s performance, and her twitchy Twilight schtick is eclipsed by Katy O’Brian as the bodybuilder headed to the championships in Las Vegas – a plot point with unfortunate echoes of Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling vehicle Over the Top.

Director Rose Glass brings back some of the desolation and hallucination from her previous picture, but Love Lies Bleeding conforms to type in a way Saint Maud refused. Her directing talent lies bleeding beneath a clichéd script and aimless story, throwing out bizarre moments and hairstyles to distract us from its narrative weakness.

This leaves Love Lies Bleeding like the cinematic equivalent of doping; it might provide viewers short-term thrills, but ultimately leaves us feeling cheated.