User reviews

I think that this film had an interesting (while not entirely original) plot, but from what I've heard about the book, should have been better than it was. It showed some very promising acting from a few young actresses and I liked the directing. The main problems are that there wasn't enough character development of, well, any of them, the resolution seemed rushed and not nearly as epic as it could have been, and the mystery surrounding the character of Ernessa was, instead of intriguing, just puzzling. It's a little hard to describe, but I didn't feel that intangible suspense and relation to the characters that I'd like to have felt. Overall, I'd say it's worth a watch, but I do wish it had been better crafted.

Director Mary Harron ("American Psycho," "The Notorious Betty Page") tackles neo-Gothic horror in her latest film, an adaptation of Rachel Klein's novel "The Moth Diaries."

Set at a remote Canadian BoardingSchool for Girls, "…Diaries" is the story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) and Lucie (Sarah Gadon,) really, really, REALLY close roommates who are looking forward to spending their last year at school together. Enter Ernessa (Lily Cole) a suspiciously gaunt, pale, yet dark figure who quickly attaches herself to Lucie. Rebecca finds herself on the outside looking in as Ernessa and Lucie's relationship grows stronger; all the while Lucie herself appears to be getting weaker and weaker.

Hmmm… Life force ebbing… Ernessa never seen during the day… Ernessa never seen eating or drinking… Could she be a… super model? No, no, that's not it. How about a vampire? A ha! Could be. Coincidentally, one of the books being taught by the new hunky English teacher (Scott Speedman) is "Carmilla," a Gothic novel about a female vampire and her prey (that actually predates Stoker's "Dracula" by about a quarter of a century.) Is this a case of life imitating art? Or would that be art imitating life imitating art? Regardless, Rebecca can't get anyone to believe her that Ernessa is a danger to them all, even after students and staff start dropping like flies. What's a good Catholic school girl to do?

Harron does her best with the material, and the film does a good job of establishing an overall mood of dread with several effective set pieces. The ending, however, underwhelmed me. It seems rushed and incomplete, which may reflect the film's apparent low budget more than the filmmaker's intent. Harron has done much with little before, so I found myself let down with this film's conclusion. Solid performances, good location work and moody cinematography can't make up for a haphazard script and the lack of a solid ending.

www.worstshowontheweb.com

I only watched this movie because I noticed the director had worked on something I really enjoyed before. But this film was pretty much a disappointment. Everything in the movie seems to just be "said", not actually acted. You feel no depth in the characters, their relationships just have to be "accepted" by the viewer. It all seemed very mechanized but I was at least hoping for some sort of greater point to it all (which of course never came) There's no explanation whatsoever as to why the characters behave the way they do, no motivation for their actions. It seems more like they are robots with predefined roles, instead of actual representations of human beings. I honestly have no idea what the target audience for this was, it's not romantic, it's not horror, not much of a mystery. It's basically a lame pseudo-emotional film with hints of horror (very mild hints mind you!).

The Moth Diaries - CATCH IT (B-) My expectations for The Moth Diaries were higher ever since I saw its promos and surprisingly at that times I hadn't seen Mary Harron? American Psycho or even Sarah Bolger in The Tudors. Once I saw Sarah Bol ger in The Tudor as Young Bloody Mary Queen of England (A Princess at that time) I was really psyched about it. Though after watching this I got to know that its directed by American Pycho's director. The Moth diaries is a chilling story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a young girl who, haunted by her father's suicide, enrolls in an elite boarding school for girls. Before long, Rebecca's friendship with the popular Lucy (Sarah Gadon) is shattered by the arrival of a dark and mysterious new student named Ernessa (Lily Cole). Rebecca, whose overtures of concern are rejected by Lucy, finds herself lost and confused. Rebecca starts to suspect that Ernessa is a vampire, but, despite the suspicious deaths that begin to occur, her fears are treated as simple girlish jealousy. As the bodies of young girls pile up and the line between reality and the supernatural starts to blur, Rebecca decides to take matters into her own hands and get rid of Ernessa. (RT) Girls or boys living in boarding schools are not a new concept for movies. The concept of the movie is interesting even the execution is but there is something lacking. I couldn't figure that out it might be the production value or just typical scare tactics or its predictable ending. Sarah Bolger is amazing as she was in the Tudors. Sarah Gadon is good. Lucy Cole was made for these kinds of creepy roles. Her face is perfect to play roles like these. Scott Speedman is good but doesn?t have many scenes. On the whole, it?s not scary or even plays with your mind like American Psycho. It turns out to be a time pass supernatural thriller.

Rebecca attends an all girl boarding school for tiresome adolescents in an old hotel. Through her friendship with fellow student Lucie, she has learned to re-embrace life, after the suicide of her poet father.

However, When spooky new student, Ernessa, arrives and supplants Rebecca in Lucie's affection: Rebecca becomes jealous and decides that Ernessa must be a vampire, as described by her handsome romantic fiction teacher.

Staff and students succumb to premature exits of one sort or another and Rebecca becomes more and more convinced of the malevolent and supernatural influence of Ernessa whilst desperately fighting off the urge to kill herself.

Never was the nike "just do it" campaign slogan more in my mind. This film might appeal to you if you are a teenage girl, with little imagination or cinema experience.... otherwise I would avoid it.

Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) is suspicious of Ernessa (Lily Cole), the new arrival at her boarding school. But is Rebecca just jealous of Ernessa's bond with Lucie, or does the new girl truly possess a dark secret?

I liked the look of this film, I liked the characters. I found Mr. Davies interesting -- his "Twilight" hair, and his creepy advances (not sure why a man is teaching at an all girl school). I feel like there was more to him than the film ever let on (should I read the book?).

In fact, the film stumbles (in my opinion) because it has lots of loose ends, such as the scene with Rebecca's period (what was going on here?) and why does it matter that her father was a respected author? If the story had just been straightforward, it might have been able to explore more of the important themes rather than just showing girls playing video games.

And I have to ask, is this a "girl" film or a horror film? I feel like that decision could not be made. It claims to be a horror film but has the tone of a girl party film. Why? I am all for mixing genres, but you have to have the right tone. Coming from director Mary Harron ("American Psycho") I expect better. Another reviewer suggested the film be called "pasty white female". I kind of agree.

Lastly: Whoever wrote the Netflix summary is an idiot. They refer to Rebecca as a "college senior" (she is sixteen, in boarding school) and says that Ernessa may be a vampire -- she is not, nor does anyone ever think she is.

I hadn't seen any trailers for this, just the brief description and the genre title of HORROR. Almost immediately the viewer is brought into the atmosphere of the close nit bunch of young girls living at a pricey boarding school. At first I was in good spirits and was quite captivated by the beauty of our main characters but as time went on, it seemed the less went on. This would be a very fine pick for young girls of course they would have to re-label it to Drama/Mystery. What we end up with is a 115 minute saga that did not in the slightest bit tug on my thriller strings and it completely failed to deliver anything to us in the Horror genre as there was none.

If they put this into theaters as it is I expect very bad results for it. I felt a little like I had been conned out nearly two hours, it's like you put an hour into the story thinking chaos will begin to reign in the second half & then the sun comes & and pretty birds fly instead. 3/10

Moth Diaries is a supernatural horror set at an all girl boarding school where young Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) is sent after the suicide of her writer father. She befriends the pretty Lucy (Sarah Gadon) and all seems well until the arrival of the strange Student Ernessa (Lily Cole). Lucy is drawn to Ernessa and the more Sarah tries to find out who this mysterious new girl really is, the more she begins to believe that she is faced with the very type of vampiric creature that she is reading about in her literature class. As the bodies pile up and everyone attributes Rebecca's suspicions as a product of the emotions left over from her father's death, Rebecca decides she must deal with this monster herself. Moth Diaries is one of those movies that tries hard and sometimes tries too hard for it's own good. There is a very Gothic mood to it. Director Mary Harron tries to give it the same period feel of a Dracula story despite being set in modern day. There are some nice visuals and effective scenes and the cast all perform well. But, sometimes the film is a bit too obvious for it's own good. Some of the scenes come across as a bit silly when maybe a bit more subtlety would have been better. Some of the voice narration by Rebbeca comes across as forced, telling us things we already have figured out for ourselves. The film probably could have used some of the sly humor that Harron used to perfection in the classic American Psycho but, here the tone comes across as a little too serious and it also can't decide whether it wants to be a straight horror or something more along the lines of a Twilight movie with it's melodramatics(Such as Rebecca's relationship with Scott Speedman's literature teacher that goes nowhere). Moth Diaries is not a complete failure and it has entertainment value but, it could have been a lot better if the filmmakers weren't trying too hard to create a goth classic in the same vein (sorry, had to) as Dracula with the melodrama of the Bella and Edward saga.

I randomly selected and streamed this film last night on Netflix, enjoyed it, and checked today to see what others were saying about it. I was surprised to find harsh words about the film, and they made me wonder why people would react this way to a well-made story like this. The cinematography is lovely. The music is so well suited that it plays unnoticed beneath the visuals – never clashing with the emotional content of the scenes. The sound editing is top notch. The young actors are all excellent. Set design is spot on for the story. No dialog is wasted. Etc. etc.

So what was the problem? My personal reaction was quite good. When it started, I expected a bad film – another sappy story about girls at school. In fact, the only scene I didn't care for was the girls "partying" in their rooms. Such a cliché rendering. But the rest was endearing. The film seduced me, drawing me in further and further as I watched. It's not revolutionary, to be sure, but why does every film have to be revolutionary? We don't hold music to that type of criteria. "Oh, another blues song. That's been done…"

Harron's achievement here is in the mood of this piece. I see people complaining about the connecting scenes, and I think about how much they must hate a film like Upstream Color or Tree of Life or Melancholia (though those films are rated quite a bit higher). The Moth Diaries is not like those films because it has a much more grounded story.

Why are people down on this film? My best guess is that the negative reactions this film received are indicative of the altered nature of film itself. The Moth Diaries takes a different tack than contemporary blockbusters. It's not The Conjuring (a great horror film), which twists every few minutes and keeps throwing shocks at you, making you squirm in your seat. But it's not intended to be. It's not a shock piece. It is a mood piece, and Harron does a beautiful job of establishing a consistent mood throughout, a mood that captures appropriate emotional content for the age-rage of the characters in the story. Had this movie been released in the 1970s, it would have found a large, receptive audience. I, for one, found it refreshing to watch a film that takes its time building mood and environment and character.

The strength of the film is its subtlety. Unfortunately, it appears that subtlety is lost on many contemporary film goers. For me, The Moth Diaries returned me to the days when movies could be captivating and sensory without abandoning story in service to "art." I liked it and I'll be tracking Mary Harron's work from now on.

Not what i was expecting. its probably why i gave it such a low rating. i thought there was gunna be sex and blood or blood and sex but nooo its almost a pg-13 flick and theres no fast paced stuff at all. but what did it for me was the ending seems like the ending should have been in the middle or beginning or something, didnt like the ending at all. skipping this ill let u know, ur not missing anything

This is a movie you are very likely to forget, a week after you have seen it. I wouldn't exactly call it one of the worst genre movies ever made but it still is one that is lacking a whole bunch of things.

The way the horror and whole mystery of the movie gets presented is disappointing, to say the very least about it. It's lacking a good buildup and the movie does a poor job at explaining everything and to let stuff make sense. Really, when looking back at this movie, nothing really makes enough sense, which only adds to the redundant impression that the overall movie is making.

You can't even really this a horror but I also don't think that this was the approach they were heading for. They went for a more quiet and humble approach, which was supposed to add to the movie its mystery. But the story just isn't ever interesting or original enough to carry the movie through. As a viewer you will already figure things out before the characters in this movie will, which is always an annoying aspect about genre movies, such as this one.

Another big reason why the movie just doesn't ever work out is its pacing. The movie really has some bad editing in it and at times it even feels like scenes are completely missing. Things often happen too fast ever each other and there just isn't ever a natural flow to any of it. It feels almost as if this movie got shot in a hurry and got put together in a couple of days, in the editing room. It does feel a bit like an incomplete movie.

Thing that I did like about it was the fact that it featured an all girl cast. It's set at a boarding school for girls. It gives the movie already a special sort of atmosphere and the way the girls interact with each other feels genuine. I'm also confident about it that women will like this movie better than men, since some of its themes should be recognizable to most.

It still is a movie you simply shouldn't bother with. It's not exciting, it's not mysterious, it's not surprising, not scary, not particularly pleasant. It basically has far too little to offer to anyone.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Every film-lover has had that moment when he or she sees a film that tries to say too much and ends up saying little-to-nothing at all. Unfortunately, that is the case with Mary Harron's adaptation of Rachel Klein's female adolescent angst drama The Moth Diaries. Here is a film that attempts to cover female friendship, hetero- and homoerotic longing, suicide, coming-of-age, murder, love, betrayal, jealousy, familial separation, grief, empathy, and much more in a single 85-minute vampire fantasy. If it can be done, this is not the film that does it. Its downfall is largely due to the piling up of explication upon explication as if Harron does not trust viewers to follow a simple but sexy storyline virtually styled after the famous made-for-television after-school movies of decades past.

The film opens with teenage girls joining one another for a new term at a Catholic boarding school. Most of the girls we meet know each other from previous terms – this is especially true for best friends Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) and Lucy (Sarah Golden). We know that Rebecca and Lucy are inseparable and that Rebecca is particularly dependent upon Lucy. Viewers are led to believe that this dependence has grown since Rebecca's famed poet father committed suicide a couple of years before the film's opening scenes. The close relationship between the two girls is forever interrupted by the arrival of a new British student named Ernessa (Lily Cole). Like any literary and/or cinematic predator prototype, Ernessa tirelessly works to separate and weaken the two girls to fulfill her own desires. Early on, the oft-seen triangle is in place with Rebecca as heroine, Ernessa as foe, and Lucy as victim.

This triangle can be found in numerous teenage girl stories. The fanciful twist here is that Ernessa is a vampire-like creature who forces her way into the existing friendship to prey on Lucy. However, the decision to attack Lucy is confusing and illogical. Lucy appears the vision of confidence and carefree youth while Rebecca is the introspective and wounded one. One could or would have imagined that Ernessa would pick on Rebecca as the weaker of the two, especially given that they have their fathers' suicides in common (though we know Ernessa's father killed himself over 100 years prior). This against-the-grain characteristic could have opened up many possibilities, but the film simply does not have the time or energy to follow up on Ernessa's motives. I will leave that central story's remaining particulars to the film's viewers. Be forewarned, there are many an incredulous event that occur one right after the other.

I wish to end on the film's major downfall. As previously noted, Harron dooms the film with double explication. First, a new handsome male English teacher arrives and begins the term with a study of Gothic fantasy fiction (which is the film's style). In a segment too on-the-nose to be believed, he introduces Bram Stoker's Dracula as being about "sex, blood, and death" which mirrors the central themes in The Moth Diaries. Second and more importantly, he assigns the girls a vampire novel with a female-centered storyline that perfectly mimics the film's own narrative. In this situation, tone might very well have saved the film just as Harron's nicely-captured satirical preppiness of the 1980s had saved her outrageous adaptation of American Psycho. Harron has likened the tone here to Peter Weir's acclaimed Picnic at Hanging Rock. Unfortunately, she aims too high and misses by a mile. Weir's masterpiece is known for its inaudibly powerful tone while Harron's fantasy bashes us about the head with too much explanation and not enough mystery.

Todd FilmPulse.Net

This movie was extremely disappointing. The plot was poorly developed, as well as the characters, who were all flat and painfully insipid, and the script was a complete waste.

I haven't read The Moth Diaries before, but from this movie and several summaries, I can tell where the story is going. And I can tell it has potential to be a good film. Not only because of the story line, but also because the cinematography of the entire movie was well done, which shows the director is capable of capturing the story.

But alas, the story that is captured is bleak and lazily drawn out. Scratch that. More like said out. Rebecca, the main character, frequently voices over her thoughts and what she's found out, instead of showing the audience. The ending is abrupt and it almost seemed like I had been watching the storyboard of the movie's ending, rather than the real ending itself. Even though I knew what was happening, I didn't feel like I ever got any time to absorb any information. The plot was practically being thrown into your face.

Some cuts in the movie were also very awkward. I had to go back to watch certain scenes again because I thought I'd missed something, but it turned out that the cuts were just really sudden. I believe that if some things had been dragged out a little longer, they would have left a larger impact on the viewer. One example would be a scene where Rebecca sees Ernessa in the library and Ernessa begins to sing to her. Right before Ernessa sings, she says something, then it immediately cuts to her singing in a split second. There is no slow tilting of the head forward or suspended glassy-eyed gazing, etc. She simply breaks into the song, which was sung creepily enough to know she was trying to be creepy, but not enough to creep me out.

It was ridiculous for any genre of movie it was meant to be. Whether it was a psychological thriller or a horror flick, it failed to boggle my mind or scare me at all.

Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) is 16 year old and still haunted by her father's suicide. Her best friend is her roommate Lucy (Sarah Gadon) at her boarding school. Ernessa Block (Lily Cole) is the new girl and she befriends Lucy to the dismay of Rebecca. The mysterious new girl somehow got friend Charley (Valerie Tian) expelled. After Rebecca and Dora (Melissa Farman) witness Ernessa do something supernatural, Dora is later found dead falling off a ledge. There is also a new teacher Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman) at the school.

This could have been a creepy Gothic horror movie. Mary Harron who made 'American Psycho' still pose the same problem to me as before. Her sparse style really stripes away the tension. She doesn't elevate the material and there is some good material here. More importantly, there are some great actors here trying their best. However, the movie never takes off. There is just a lack of tension. There is a lack of visual style. This is a bland execution. The female melodrama promises something that is never emotionally delivered. It's potentially an interesting horror but Harron doesn't know how to make one. Of course, this one doesn't have Christian Bale.

"It's like she's invading my mind, even when I'm alone I can't escape her." Rebecca (Bolger) is ready for her new school year to start. After the death of her father she is grateful to get back to her friends. She is surprised when a new girl, Ernessa (Cole) shows up. What starts off as a new girl trying to make friends turns into something much more dangerous and Rebecca becomes suspicious of her when her friends turn up missing, or dead. I will start by saying that this movie is overall not that bad. I also once again have to say that I'm pretty sure I am not the audience this movie was made for. This is a horror movie about an all girls high school. Being a 30 year old man I couldn't relate. The movie did have an overused idea, but pulled it off in a way that made it feel interesting. There are some pretty creepy parts in this and Lily Cole is perfect in this role but I had a hard time getting into it. If you like movies like "The Roommate" you will probably like this one as well. Overall, not a bad movie at all. I was entertained but if I was a teen girl I probably would have liked it more. I give it a B-

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.

I read a lot of teen books but not The Moth Diaries, going in to the movie I had no idea where it was heading. Admittedly I was expecting a little more Single White Female and was surprised when the supernatural elements started appearing.

I'm not sure Lily Cole was a good fit for this role. I love her and she was great St Trinian's but in this she came across as kind of awkward, mainly because she was head taller than everyone else. I could also swear everyone called her Vanessa throughout the movie...

I left the movie feeling that there weren't any supernatural elements at all and that Rebecca had just finally cracked and needed mental help. That's just my personal opinion and I think the movie wanted me to believe Rebecca's story, despite the numerous weird hallucinations. And what was with that library scene near the end? Overall, a fairly decent movie to watch if you're bored but I didn't feel like it went anywhere.

One of the worst films ever made. Never watch this. Ever. I enjoyed twenty seconds of this film. And i am not being facetious. A failure in every department except maybe lighting and sound. I guess costume didn't do too bad of a job either. Set design was alright. Location scouting was okay. Everything else was terrible. You cant even show this to a class of film students as instruction on what not to do. I am dying to find out what the production budget was on this film. The director should be forced to return their salary. Cant really fault the actors on this one. A poor outing for this director. I've seen first time student director films better than this.

Recently I have been close to the phenomenon of suicide. A friend does not recover from the suicide of his partner, and his psychotic traits have triggered... LaterI was invited to a forum on art as suicide prevention, but the dialogue was dominated by two survivors, a victim's partner and a psychologist with the usual discourse. ThenI saw «The Moth Diaries», a film in which suicide is the theme that underlies the entire plot, but it does not shed light on it but rather takes the usual way: the pain of the relatives and friends who mourn the loss of the one who took his life. The film focuses on Rebecca, the daughter of a writer who committed suicide. The interesting thing is that it also takes the path of the supernatural and introduces us to the corporeal representation of a suicide victim called Ernessa Bloch. However, she is just another cuckoo and Mary Harron's script gives very vague reasons as to why Erness wants Rebecca to commit suicide too. As usual, the protagonist and the ghost do not urge us to let go of the suicide victims, to respect their decision and to "let them go." If not, there would be no movie...

I believe there are two basic types of suicide victims: first, the person who wanted to live, but did not know how to handle his/her discomfort and chose suicide. That person needed help from a mental health specialist. And second, the person who simply wants to die, who wants to say bye-bye to this world and move on to something else, without fear of what comes, if anything is going to come. But suicide is demonized, especially by religions. And movies like «The Moth Diaries» do little to exorcise the demons that have been attributed to suicide, so everybody can understand it better... because we can even see it as a normal control of overpopulation! In a way!

I liked the sobriety of the treatment (except for the blood showers), which resulted in a well-crafted and restrained horror film, but as a reflection on suicide Mary Harron (director of «I Shot Andy Warhol» and «American Psycho») did not make an enlightening contribution.

This movie is slow, predictable, & not in the least bit scary. It feels like a made for TV movie. Yet I still kind of enjoyed it! Lily Coles performance alone makes this movie worth watching. She's perfect in her part as the creepy new girl. The other lead actress isn't bad either. When it was over, there were still a couple of questions left unanswered. A really good movie will leave you turning things around in your head but in this case, once the main question is answered you just really don't care. In the end, not something to watch if you're in the mood for a good scare but not a total waste of time. I would rather see a movie like this one than a bloody gorefest with a crappy plot any day.