Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “The Moth Diaries”
By: Brian Cotnoir & Lindsay Holcomb
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Ernessa, Lucy, and Rebecca
the Main Characters of "The Moth Diaries" |
I don’t even know
where to begin to explain this film. I
don’t think I can do that accurately enough for a number of various
reasons. One reason being is that this
film was based off a novel that was written from the perspective of a woman for
an audience that is, presumed, to be mostly woman as well. I am of a the Male sex, so already I feel
that I have some sort of sexist bias lying somewhere in my subconscious as to
why I don’t like this film, but I also feel that using that bias I’m already
being unfair to the film because my interpretation is probably not the best
suited to write a review on this film. So
I have decided to bring in a Female avid film watcher to try and help balance
out my interpretations, and bring some new ideas and perspectives to the
table. The person I chose to bring in
for the female perspective is my good friend Lindsay--who also wrote a review
of the film “Repo Men” last year. So if
you are interested in reading Lindsay’s other review, I will post the link to
her review at the bottom of this page.
From a Male Perspective (By: Brian
Cotnoir)
The film “The Moth
Diaries” is based off of a novel by Rachael Klein, and it is told in diary
form, from the Perspective of the film’s protagonist named Rebecca. Rebecca is a 16-year-old girl who attends a
prestigious Boarding School—that actually used to be a hotel—and her hopes to
have a great school year with her best friend Lucy. However, a new and mysterious girl to the
school, named Ernessa, befriends Lucy and soon Rebecca’s best friend is
spending more time with the new girl.
Rebecca begins to suspect that Ernessa may be a vampire and is trying to
steal Lucy away from her, but are Rebecca’s outrageous suspicion’s true or is
this just petty teenage jealousy?
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| So this is what All Girls Schools are really like, right??? |
When I first saw the words
“teenage girls” and “boarding school” in the plot description, my mind
immediately went to “Ooh, maybe there’ll be some hot girl-on-girl in this film”,
and my expectations were narrowly achieved.
There is so much sexual tension early on in the film, such as Rebecca
and Lucy having a conversation while Lucy is in the bath. Not to mention the scenes that happen later in
the film when Lucy begins to spend a lot of time with Ernessa. I’m not sure if
this was a theme or a something that was a large part of the novel, but it was
pretty distracting. The buildup of this sexual tension between Rebecca, Lucy,
and Ernessa boarder’s on that of a 1970’s soft-core porn.
Our main character Rebecca, played by
actress Sarah Bolger, is a very sensible character and therefore very likeable
in my opinion. Whenever Rebecca
confronts someone with facts about her concerns about Ernessa’s peculiar and
concerning behavior—whether it be a friend or a responsible adult—everyone just
seems to right her off and tell her she’s overreacting.
For everything Rebecca has in common sense,
she lacks in emotional strength. Rebecca
does cry an awful lot in the film, and while I agree that it’s not at all possible
for her character to always be strong, I do feel the crying parts of way too
overplayed in this film. Also, I was not
a fan of her on again-off again narration throughout the film. I understand that it was a large part of how
the story was told in the novel, but I don’t think it carried over very well to
the film.
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| It's Like She's not even Trying To be Subtle in the film. |
Now the character Ernessa, played by actress Lily Cole, is just
your typical movie antagonist. She is
bright, well-spoken, talks about morbid things, is pretty neurotic, and has a
British accent (of sorts). She’s like
the illegitimate child of Hannibal Lecter, and there is just nothing surprising
about her performance. For instance, in
“Silence of the Lambs” we know Hannibal Lecter is the bad guy right away just
from the way he talks and his mannerisms, and it is established by the story
that he is the bad guy. In “the Moth
Diaries” they should have made Ernessa more mysterious—for the audiences’
sake—but instead they wasted no time letting us know who the antagonist was
they just put her on screen and here she is just “Hi there; I’m the villain. I’m
the one who’s going to make your life miserable”. Which is bad because they really should have
down-played Ernessa’s behavior and mannerisms in the beginning so that way the
audience would have to wait and decide whether or not they thought Ernessa was
a vampire or not. But instead they save us the thought process and just make
her another obvious villain.
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| Mr. Davis has Impure Intentions |
The adults in the film are all portrayed as
ignorant and lacking commonsense. The
one male teacher in this film, Mr. Davis—played by Actor Scott Speedman—is just
too damn weird. He befriends Rebecca,
and all he does is gush about what a brilliant writer her father was, and how
tragic it was that he committed suicide. I
don’t think it’s a great idea for a teacher to constantly be reminding a
student that their father killed himself, and then gush over how sad it was and
how much he liked him like some sort of weirdo fan boy. And if that wasn’t s creepy enough, he also tries
to hook-up with Rebecca in his office, after she goes there for some helpful
advice. I’m a licensed Teacher and I
believe that one of the golden rules of Teaching is that at no point should you
ever ATTEMPT TO BANG ONE OF YOUR STUDENTS!
Though, that’s more of a personal issue I have with this film.
Also,
the school’s principal does nothing to really help anyone in the film. Three dead bodies turn up on the campus in
the semester and she play’s them off like they were terrible accidents. If I had a daughter that went to this school,
I would have pulled her out by now!
Three dead bodies turn up and you don’t call police to
investigate—except for the one that was made to look like a suicide—you are a
terrible educator, lady. This film
had a lot of potential to be great, but unfortunately it is just another film
that was poorly adapted from a novel, and that is my perspective as a male who
sat down and watched this film. Don’t
get me wrong this film isn’t horrible, but I just felt that it could have been
so much better.
From a Female Perspective (By:
Lindsay Holcomb)
This
film is not a bad one. It was made in 2011 and is classified as a horror movie
(in IMDB at least). It is set in an all girls school and surrounds a young
woman who is in her junior year at the school (college I think, though it could
also be a REALLY expensive private high school) and encounters a very strange
new student who she believes is a vampire.
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| Friends, don't let friends get killed by vampires |
It
starts off as the main character, Rebecca, having a close knit group of friends
who seem more interested in losing their virginity and the hot new teacher than
anything else. Becca came to the school after her father killed himself and
this has made her a bit clingy to her friends, especially her best friend Lucy
(Dracula reference!!). This creates some tension when the new girl, Ernessa,
becomes friends with Lucy. Lucy hangs out more with Ernessa than Becca, hurting
Becca and making her feel alone. One by one, Becca’s friends leave. Either they
leave her or leave the school, which is seemingly Ernessa’s doing. Becca
suspects Ernessa of manipulating her friends and making her more lonesome. Soon
she even suspects that Ernessa is not human and must be killed.
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| The ever manipulative Ernessa hides behind the mask of sanity |
This
seems like an accurate depiction of a vampire’s actions. Ernessa manipulates
people and kills them off using ‘accidents’ to avoid suspicion. She sets her
sights on Becca and uses her friends’ weaknesses to be rid of them, and move
them away from Becca. It can be said that Ernessa even manipulated Becca into
an obsession about her, by pushing away the rest of her friends in her attempt
to be free of Ernessa. No one suspects Ernessa and believes; instead that Becca
is losing it.
Another
thing is that the film really gets into the sensual aspect of the vampire.
Through most of the film it could look like Ernessa is courting Lucy and Becca,
jealous of this new relationship, creates the vampire persona as a way to
understand Lucy’s betrayal.
That
could be accurate if Ernessa didn’t enter Becca’s dreams, never ate, wandered
around at night, had a room full of moths, walked through a window, slept in a
trunk, lived in the school a hundred years ago when it was hotel and freaking
FLY’S!! Through all this, the word vampire is never really associated with
Ernessa, no one calls her a vampire it is implied by Becca, but never said. The
only times the word vampire is mentioned in the film is in a class, or when a
book is being read.
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| I think Ernessa, just may be a Vampire. |
Now,
where the movie missed its mark: It is listed as horror but comes off as more
of a suspense movie. I think that Ernessa could be more terrifying if you saw
both sides of her, the killer and the lost lonely lover: one moment drinking
blood from a hated teacher and the next flirting with Lucy. Perhaps that would
cause one to lose the subtlety that this film uses, but something like that
could push it further if used correctly. I have a strong opinion that the enemy
you don’t see is scarier than the one you do (big fan of Paranormal Activity),
but when it comes to vampires I think there should be a reveal, proving that
she is a creature of the night, but only at the end, or correct moment. Let her
victim see what she is and her sanity drained just enough so she is alone, with
the vampire as her last option for companionship. This film gets half way
there, but could push it a bit further, I think. Creepy, yes, horror, not so
much. So, this is an okay movie for
vampire fans, but if you’re looking for a gore-fest, I’d try 30 Days of Night
first.
P.S.
There is a teacher, Mr. Davies, who I liked in the film until he turned into a
horny creep!
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