The Moth Diaries

When the new girl in school starts to come between Rebecca and her best friend, Lucy, she begins to suspect that there is something far more sinister behind their relationship. Rachel Klein's modern update on traditional Gothic storytelling is brought to life in Mary Harron's screen adaptation of THE MOTH DIARIES, from 2011. Rebecca and the other girls transpose their teenage anxieties like anorexia, depression, suicide, and sexuality on to their ghostly classmate as a means of dealing with their internal struggles. While Ernessa may not be seen physically drawing the blood from her victims, her presence at the school certainly saps the other girls of their strength and happiness, leading them in to despair. The lesbianic undertones that are present in the plot also draw strongly from the classic tale of Carmilla, which is frequently referenced throughout the girls' schoolwork. Harron takes a timely approach in developing the characters and mood of the picture, but unfortunately, her deliberate pacing begins to wear during the long periods of inaction and leaves the audience feeling deprived as the film draws to its anticlimactic ending. Still, we are left on a positive note, having grown with Rebecca as she overcomes her pain and loss to find a renewed strength in herself. THE MOTH DIARIES ultimately falls short of becoming a modern classic, but it does provide another unique and emotionally charged vampire tale in the same vein as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.