THE MOTH DIARIES – The Review (and a Tribute to Video Watchdog)

As part of my post duty orders here at We Are Movie Geeks I am tasked with reviewing movies on DVD and Blu ray that may not have found an audience. Movies with little or no theatrical release, did not play very long, escaped attention, what have you.

I am proud to direct your attention to a little known film from 2011 called The Moth Diaries. First I have to say that I, like many millions of movie goers, reveled in the new screen incarnation of Wonder Woman, not only starring Gal Gadot as the original female super hero and masterfully directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, and also starring Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen and a whole crew of the most righteous Amazons ever seen on a movie screen, wonderful!

I have a confession to make, at the age of 10 I was obsessed with the legend of the Amazon Empire. Fully aware that they did not allow boy children to live (allegedly) I loved the idea anyway. I saw Wonder Woman three times on the big screen, so far. I wanted the whole movie to take place in the Amazon’s Kingdom. But I digress; I’m here to talk about The Moth Diaries.
My point being that Wonder Woman is a celebration of Woman Power (I would say Girl Power but that would be more than a bit condescending.) Moth Diaries is even more of a celebration of Girl Power (here that fits, this is a movie about a girl’s boarding school. )

Directed and screenplay by a woman, Mary Herron (American Psycho) based on a novel by a woman, Rachel Klein, produced mostly by women including Sandra Cunningham and several others and starring an almost all female cast Sarah Bolger, Lily Cole, Sarah Gadon and many others, this is far from being a “Chick Flick” (whatever that really is!) No my friends The Moth Diaries fulfills every fan boys, and girls, requirements for a “scary movie” and raises a lot of questions about life in general.

Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) is one of many young ladies attending a prestigious all girls school in Canada (Moth Diaries was filmed in Quebec but the movie is never location specific.) Her best friend is Lucy (Sarah Gadon,) Rebecca keeps a diary of daily events and is haunted by the death by suicide of her Father, and apparently has attempted suicide herself. Both Rebecca and Lucy are popular among the other girls, until a new comer arrives, Ernessa (Lily Cole).

Ernessa, as played by Lily Cole , is one strange character. Right from the beginning we can see something is not right. Lily Cole is a very odd looking actress, her features seem to be accentuated with very heavy eyebrows.

Ernessa seems like a misfit and an outsider, at first. Soon Lucy is befriending her, and other girls trail in her wake. Rebecca is soon no longer the popular girl on campus. She starts believing Ernessa is a vampire, or is she just jealous of the new girl? Or is she going into a mental downward spiral of paranoia and madness?

Ernessa displays none of the classic vampire attributes; there are no fangs, no puncture wounds on the neck. There are crosses; this is a Catholic girl’s school after all. But Ernessa can enter the school chapel with no problem; she is fine in broad daylight. Yet she can command moths, yes moths, to do her bidding. And she can levitate, along with her new best friend Lucy while Rebecca watches in horror.

This is yet another film filed with references but many of them are literary. A young, handsome English teacher, Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman) teaches from the text of Dracula by Bram Stoker. In a wonderful scene he states that Stoker’s novel is really about female empowerment, female sexuality. This causes a room full of drowsy, falling asleep young ladies to (literally) sit up and take notice.

That the best friend of Rebecca is named Lucy is no coincidence. And Mr. Davies also teaches from the text of J Sheridan Le Fanu’s groundbreaking short novel Carmilla, the first vampire story to suggest a lesbian relationship between vampire and victim.

Moth Diaries is not a jump out of your seat scary movie. Instead we get a feeling of dread, real dread as the story progresses. It is not as graphic as other more recent vampire movies such as Let The Right One In and it’s American remake Let Me In. Although there is one scene, well, to quote Mel Brooks in Dracula, Dead and Loving It “there may be a little blood!”
And Moth Diaries does not just reference vampire literature. There are scenes and situations that echo every girl’s school movie from Madchen in Uniform and Picnic at Hanging Rock up to Dario Argento’s masterpiece Suspiria. One entire sequence is a nod to Argento’s film.

And Moth Diaries is ambiguous right up until the end. Is Ernessa really a vampire? Is she a ghost? Is she Rebecca from a past life? The movie more than hints that Ernessa and Rebecca is actually the same person. Lucy has a scene with Rebecca which more than hints that it’s Rebecca who is actually the vampire!

Moth Diaries is a wonderful, intelligent, well thought out movie that hits on several very human fears; being an outcast, a woman’s fear of her own menstrual cycle, (there is one very graphic scene depicting just that) fear of being misunderstood, of having our best intentions backfire on us, fear of sex itself, fear of gay sex, you name it, it’s all there.
I recognized none of the actors here, only the director was familiar to me. The whole cast is all on the same page and deliver wonderful performances with some very difficult and provocative material. Now here is the weird thing, creepy even. I don’t know how other Movie Geeks do their research on a film. Myself, I never, ever read a critic or a puff piece on a movie until I’ve seen it. After watching anything, in a theater, on dvd or blu ray, then I go to the websites and magazines to read what the critics have to say about it.

I hit our website first, We Are Movie Geeks, to see what my cohorts, associates and partners in crime have to say about a title, if it’s been reviewed. I also look at Roger Ebert’s website and Rotten Tomatoes, I read Dvd Verdict regularly. But my favorite place to read reviews are in some of the more esoteric magazines. I regularly buy Rue Morgue, Phantom of the Movies Videoscope, Shock Cinema, Screem, Famous Monsters, Diabolique. And one of my favorite magazines, for years, has been Video Watchdog, edited and published by Tim and Donna Lucas.

One of my bizarre habits, maybe you know someone like this, or maybe you is someone like this. I cannot read my magazines as fast as I buy them Just as an example I love Rue Morgue magazine, they have had several changes in Editorial staff over the last few years, yet they remain consistent in their layout, coverage, viewpoint all of that. I love to read their magazine, but I am still reading their 2014 issues. I have a stand up box with all their issues leading up to the most recent, mint condition of course, because I haven’t gotten around to reading them. And that is not the only one, all of my film magazines I am behind on. And if it’s the more mundane type of publication, computers or politics, what have you, especially fiction magazines, I am even further behind. I have magazines that I bought in the 1990s and I haven’t gotten to them yet.

The same with books, I have a terrible habit of buying books, putting them neatly on shelves, in alphabetical order, and, for the most part, ignoring them. I do read a lot of books, from the library. I have spent my life trying to catch up on my reading, probably will never happen. My last words on my death bed will probably be “I never got around to reading War and Peace! Marcel Proust! Romance of the Three Kingdoms! Wait a minute!”

My point being, that was not so with Video Watchdog. I love that magazine so much, I only have a couple of issues to go to be completely caught up. And this is the sad part, Tim and Donna Lucas have ceased publication of that wonderful magazine.

I had a subscription, I knew something was wrong last year when months went by between issues. Then, they stopped altogether, then I received a notice of a filing for bankruptcy by the Lucas, operating under the name Video Watchdog. I honestly felt like a close friend had died. I depended on Video Watchdog for a great many things, excellent reviews of movies I had never heard of and that always piqued my interest to see them. Or reviews of movies I had heard of years ago and never gotten the chance to see, such as their excellent article on a bizarre little regional film called Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood which someone at the Monster Times liked, way back in the 1970s. I still haven’t seen it but I sure enjoyed reading about it.

Tim Lucas did an excellent series of articles reevaluating and championing the films of Jess Franco, something that was long overdue. Pulling out a back issue at random, on the cover, Green Slime! An insane Japanese movie sci-fi monster movie with an all American and European cast. A review of the Silver Chalice by Ramsey Campbell, a review that led me to actually watch this amazing film. (Don’t worry I’ll be writing my own review shortly.) Campbell was one of the regular contributors to VW as well as Kim Newman, Shane M Dallman, David Kalat, Douglas E Winter and often Tim Lucas himself contributing wonderful articles, interviews and reviews.
I attempted to break into Video Watchdog some years ago when I wrote to several magazines offering my services. Tim Lucas was the only editor who actually sent a response. And now his great magazine is gone.

Now, I tell all this to lead up to the really whacked part of this rambling narrative. The day after I watched Moth Diaries, as I was just starting to look through my back issues for any information about this excellent movie, in the mail came, one last issue of Video Watchdog, an undated, number 184, final issue for current subscribers, with Lily Cole on the cover from Moth Diaries! The….Day….. After. Covered as part of an article detailing movies inspired by Le Fanu’s story Carmilla here was exactly what I was looking for, from a source I thought had disappeared from my life completely.

And, Tim and Donna are selling their back issues of Video Watchdog for the cost of postage and handling only, see their website for details. I put in my order and wrote a thank you letter to the Lucas’ for everything they’ve done for film scholarship. And I’m keeping every back issue I currently possess; don’t even ask if you can buy them, they are truly collector’s items now.
So thank you Tim and Donna Lucas, Video Watchdog is already missed.