beorhhouse An interesting Gothic film that is more creepy than outright terrifying. There's quite a bit of blood, and it should be remembered that in Styria as well as other parts of the Old Country there is no difference between a vampire and a witch. The word used for both, interchangeably, is 'striga', plural 'strigoi'. This is a great study for anyone even remotely interested in vampire lore, but more questions are asked here than are answered--something some like, I however do not. The plight of abused women seems to be the primary theme, and what an abused woman can do about her predicament. Familial love, though, wins out in the end and the striga is forced to leave because of the intensity of that love. J.S. Le Fanu wrote quite a different story, but this is a nice adaptation or inspired piece, and the lesbian theme is really downplayed and made to look more like what Le Fanu intended and wrote as opposed to what today's critics like to repeat for the masses. The cinematography and acting are excellent. I only give this film a seven because the phantasmagoria wasn't phantasmagoric enough, possibly because the reality scenes were too real and interspersed with the nightmare far too often.

grazimj-612-779884 This is a great, atmospheric psychological thriller. In a time when too many horror films rely on cheap shocks this is a welcome, slow burn into the Gothic and the uncanny.The women in the film would be easy to watch doing anything, but what shines is the tense, Gothic tone they're able to carry. I was skeptical about how Stephen Rhea would play in this, but he and the whole cast carry the mood well. Speaking of the mood. The gloomy visuals and period Soviet block color palette is probably the anchor and the thing I like best about the whole film. Not to mention the rad new-wave goth soundtrack!

johndcali I saw this at a festival about a year ago, and was happy to finally find it online. I really enjoyed it when I first saw it, and it really stuck with me for a few days after. I kept trying to tell people about it after, but could never find it available anywhere. Now I'm glad it's finally been released, although I think the title may be different. It is very atmospheric, and haunting. The day after I saw it, I was trying to look up information about it, but aside from a couple articles, it was hard to find info about when it would be released. Now that it's out, I watched it again, and liked it just as much the second time. It was nice to see a horror/Gothic horror movie set in the 1980s Eastern Europe. I also loved Eleanor Tomlinson, and thought she was great in this role. Overall, I'd highly recommend this movie to film fans.

gralfredo10 Welcoming, but sort of disappointing effort to bring to the screen this modern age version of Carmilla, the classic horror/Gothic/romantic vampire story written by Sheridan Lefanu. The movie has a crafted cinematography (probably the plus of the movie) and direction. It succeeded to create a bittersweet horror dream like atmosphere that by the last third of the film makes us completely hooked into it. Contributing to that is the awesome performance of Julia Pietrucha on the hole of Carmilla, a seductive young lady that end up becoming an supernatural entity that feed from the blood of virgin women.The things go south when we see the high potential that the script could had have and was thrown away. Seeing that it putted the story in a modern age era and created an intriguing situation for the reason why Lara and her father are brought to this ancient castle in Styria is a good point but at the same time, it turned some of the characters, that are so intense and romantically tragic in the book, in flat weak evil characters for the example of the General Spiegel.The glimpse of women empowerment message that it brings with the character of Carmilla, and the hole situation of her possible "transformation" don't pay back when her supernatural objectives come to life in a really distorted way... and when we have such weak character as Lara, that sometimes is over exposed as a goth teen spoiled teenager that cut herself and has pictures of Ian Curtis on her walls. Not that the hole new wave and goth looks aren't cool but it's sometimes just too much. Though the soundtrack is good, the visuals are great, it's just the text and editing that could be better to live up to the expectations to bring a great reinterpretation of this great novel to life.