The Moth Diaries: Instantly Forgettable

You know how we're re-inventing the Vampire genre every six months? Twilight and Let The Right One In and whatever the latest Underworld was trying to do? Now a pro is tacking a crack at it. You remember Mary Harron? She did American Psycho, one of the best movies in the history of movies, and an adaptation of a book that both perfectly honored the source material while making it accessible, clever, and simultaneously impactful and hilarious. She's going to take a novel by Rachel Klein that's a lot more straightforward than Ellis' dense masterwork, and she's going to give it the same treatment. This will be one for the ages!

Oh. So Vampires become moths instead of bats?

That's.. it? Is there a way that impacts… No? Hm. But it's Mary Harron. Like.. she handledI Shot Andy Warhol and The Notorious Bettie Page. If there's one thing she knows, it's unhinged female characters with… What? No? Hm. Is there any chance Scott Speedman is in this? Really? Okay… we'll we've got that working… for us?

There are few things less pleasant to review than a film that is simply boring. I could dislike The Three Stooges but working through that reasoning became a mulch-faceted deconstruction of the history of a genre. I could dislikeThe Darkest Hour because it was dumb as rocks, as it gave me considerable joy to laugh at it. I have little more than the most tepid response to The Moth Diaries because I'm not sure it did anything. Does instilling me with a measure of disappointment count? Okay. Good.

Set in an all girls boarding school, Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) and her roommate Lucie (Sarah Gordon) are total besties, until a weird foreign girl Ernessa (Lily Cole) moves in across the hall. Ernessa is a vampire. She makes Lucie her slave and then comes for Rebecca, and some girls get caught in between. Also, Scott Speedman plays an English teacher. That's… basically it.

It's just bland. It's a bland film. There is nothing of the daring, edgy darkness which Harron knows so well. The characters are pencil thin stereotypes, and the dialogue feels randomly generated by a teenage ad-lib machine. Nor does this film contain much in the way of violence, and only one scene where blood narratively exists as more than a nose-bleed. It is somewhat awe-inspiring that Harron could be given a Vampire movie, and proceed to squander it so recklessly.

I see what she was thinking. Maybe.

Early in the film, Prof. Speedman explains the Gothic Vampire novel to his English class, and scrawls the words "sex, death, blood" on the chalkboard… as so often happens at all girl schools with a seemingly religious bent. These three are the vital elements of any good vampire story, and I believe The Moth Diaries intended to be exactly that: a good Gothic version of a vampire tale. It wants to focus on the psychological aspects of the genre, the sexual interplay, especially amongst this group of virginal teenage girls and their rigid social caste system.

I applaud that. I want to see that movie, but this isn't it. It's barely a horror film. Subtle is not synonymous with boring. And despite having the tools to venture deep into the unknown, the film passes every opportunity to apply the elements it even promised us in the beginning.

The Moth Diaries is so neutered and grey, it's instantly forgettable. I can think of no reason to advise anyone to see it, and as a big Harron fan that hurts. I sincerely hope this was produced in an effort to pay off some gambling debts, or raise funds for another feature, because if it were a labor of love, or even strong intent, it would be crushing to me. As it stands, its a paint by the numbers exercise in a genre where rehashing is simply unacceptable at this point, especially if you aren't painting with blood.