Leofwine_draca THE MOTH DIARIES is an attempt at a creepy reworking of J. S. Le Fanu's CARMILLA, a classic Victorian vampire story about a female vampire. The story was previously adapted to great effect by Hammer in THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and TWINS OF EVIL.Sadly, this sedate and all-too-mainstream version of the story doesn't have much to offer apart from a few diluted thrills and atmospherics. With such a full-blooded tale as source material, I'm not sure why they would go ahead and make such a subtle and insipid film, but they did. And THE MOTH DIARIES isn't even particularly creepy or atmospheric to make up for it.The reliable Sarah Bolger (INTO THE BADLANDS) stars as a prim and proper young student who soon realises there's something odd about her new classmate, played by model Lily Cole (who's no actress on the strength of her non-performance here). After a hell of a lot of repetitive dialogue and various surreal encounters, there's a climax of sorts, but not before most viewers will have dozed off. And whoever thought the scenes with the silly CGI moths were a good idea wants removing from the film industry.

phd_travel Atmospheric and literary, this supernatural movie isn't run of the mill. It lacks the silliness or shock tactics and silly romance of some of the other vampire movies jumping on the Twilight bandwagon.A subtly chilling atmosphere is set up in a girl's boarding school. The cast is superior. Sarah Gadon pale and beautiful plays Lucy a bright cheerful girl who befriends creepy looking newcomer Ernessa played by the strangest looking actress Lily Cole. Lucy's friend and the central character is Rebecca played by the sweet Sarah Bolger. Rebecca begins to suspect something strange about Ernessa. Scott Speedman plays a new English teacher.Faults: a few too many dream/hallucinations.This isn't a big movie with lots of effects but it's well done in a classy way for the genre. Liked the way things don't get too ridiculous and the ending which isn't formula.

hypnokomedy Actually not a bad movie. Lily Cole and the actress who played the main character are pretty good. There are some plot holes: The teacher who kisses the girl, nothing happens to him, and one wonders why he is even present in the movie. It is fairly clear from the beginning of the movie what is happening, and what will likely happen. We're told that Ernessa has to do laps in the pool as a punishment for not showing up at gym classes, but we're not told why, and we discover she can't swim. This tidbit goes nowhere, except to provide justification for a later murder. The movie has Ernessa changing into moths, but again, we're not told why. Ernessa wants the female led to kill herself but we're not told why a suicide will somehow guarantee vampire immortality. One of the girls, a Japanese student, is somehow induced to throw a chair out of the window, ostensibly to get her kicked out, and therefore out of the circle of friends so Ernessa can continue her work... but we're not told really why. One of the other characters goes off to the woods to lose her virginity but this is apparently only a vehicle for a dream sequence where the studly English teacher is seducing the student. But since the English teacher sub-plot really doesn't go anywhere, one wonders why this was included. But if you're doing something else, and have the movie on, it's not a bad flick. The set is visually rich, and the characters are present enough to make it entertaining. To summarize there is a tension throughout the movie that was pretty good though one wonders whether or not the director/screenwriter had some difficulty in finding her ending.

Sean Jump Based on a popular young adult novel but equally indebted to Sheridan Le Fanu's classic novella "Carmilla," The Moth Diaries is a story of angst, loss, and the dividing line between reality and fantasy. It might also be a vampire story. At least, one of the characters thinks another girl is a vampire, one who transforms into a flurry of moths on cold, moonlit nights. Can the protagonist save her best friend from the vampire's evil intentions, or is the vampire really just playing with her real prey? For the most part, the script does justice to its literary inspirations, and perhaps one reason the film failed to equal the popularity of the original novel is that it is too quiet, too subtle, too psychological. Is it a horror movie? Not really, at least not in the accepted sense. Fans of slasher films or torture porn certainly won't find what they're looking for in this movie, and for all that The Moth Diaries is marketed as a vampire film it's debatable--even doubtful--if it's really even that. The Moth Diaries is more psychological drama than anything else, albeit a very Gothic one.As a Gothic melodrama that explores the nature of grief, love, and the painful process of personal evolution, The Moth Diaries is extremely successful. The plot remains ambiguous and even after the closing credits much remains uncertain, but it is clear that whatever has actually happened, our main character has, somehow, left one epoch behind and emerged into a new one. Anyone who can relate to that may find much in The Moth Diaries to identify with.