father’s assertion that God will protect the family from the plague that is killing the peasants:
“‘Creator! Nature!’ said the young lady in an- swer to my gentle father. ‘And this disease that invades the countryside is natural. Nature. All things proceed from nature—don’t they? All things in heaven, in the earth, and under the earth act and live as nature ordains. I think so.’”
Alucarda’s “secrets,” the hunchback’s character- ization of her true identity, the organic design of both the crypt and convent, the fact that both reli- gions venerate animals (the goat vs. the lamb) and blood, the witches’ invocation of the lord of “leaf and fruit and tree” and the Mother Superior’s homily about St. Theresa (the “Little Flower”), all strongly suggest that both the Christians and witches are channeling a force that stems from the natural world. Carmilla is, in theory, correct. However, Moctezuma—in stark contrast to Le Fanu—argues that there is an even greater force at play, easily ignored by both sides in their slavish dedication to their own agendas. That force is agape, the Greek term for selfless love. While in CARMILLA Le Fanu offers a pessimistic “Catch 22” in which the absence of agape is portrayed as monstrous, yet devotion to it is little more than an invitation to victimization, Moctezuma seems to argue that it is the only force that truly matters. It is agape that permits the infant Alucarda to es- cape the crypt, that leads to Sister Angelica’s vic- tory over the fortune teller, that almost transforms the vampiric Justine into her former self, and, embodied in Sister Angelica, that eventually dis- pels Alucarda. While agape does not necessarily save an individual from suffering or death (as Justine and Sister Angelica both die), and can be easily exploited (as when Alucarda preys upon Oszek’s daughter), in the end it proves stronger than hate, stronger than violence, and even stron- ger than eros (sexual love) or filios (love for one’s family). Its value is so difficult to measure precisely because it permits us to transcend material reality and achieve communion with something larger than ourselves, a point made in the somewhat am- biguous ending. The fact that Alucarda (unlike Justine) at the film’s conclusion does not disinte- grate but simply fades away leaves open the pos- sibility that she was not necessarily defeated, but redeemed.
As hopefully can be seen from this synopsis, ALUCARDA is neither the “silly” and “histrionic” film its critics make it out to be, nor is it the un- equivocal endorsement of Catholicism or the
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anticlerical diatribe that some of its admirers have labeled it. At its heart, the film remains a thought- ful and visually engaging exploration of the philo- sophical issues raised by CARMILLA, as well as one of the very best adaptations of Le Fanu’s work.
“I wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me, as I do to you. I have never had a friend—shall I find one now?”
NIGHTMARE CLASSICS: “Carmilla”
1989, Warner Home Video, OOP, VHS/LD
Set in the American South shortly after the Civil War, “Carmilla”—one of only two episodes pro- duced for the Showtime Networks series NIGHT- MARE CLASSICS—focuses on the plight of Maria (Ione Skye), a young woman maintained in a state of isolation and arrested development by her domi- neering father Leo (Roy Dotrice), who fears that she will one day abandon him as her mother did years earlier. Maria’s desperate plea for a com- panion seems to be answered when a carriage accident near her home yields one survivor—a beautiful young woman named Carmilla (Meg Tilly). With her family apparently dead, Carmilla is in- vited to stay on, though her presence seems to herald the arrival of the plague that has been deci- mating the southern parishes. While Carmilla cap- tivates Leo with her flirtatious advances and Maria with offers to eventually take her along on her trav- els, the deaths of both a young runaway and the household’s black servant from numerous bat bites leads to an investigation by Inspector Amos (Roddy McDowall, the only actor here attempting a South- ern accent). When Maria falls ill and bite marks are discovered on her neck, Amos is able to persuade both Leo and the local doctor that their new visi- tor, rather than a plague, is responsible for both the recent deaths and Maria’s condition. Convinced that Carmilla is a vampire, the three men seek to save both Maria and the parish by eliminating the threat in their midst. Maria, even knowing Carmilla’s true nature, decides that she does not wish to be saved, until her companion’s betrayal leads her to reevaluate the “new life” Carmilla proposes. Despite the changes in setting and characters, and the fact that not single line of Le Fanu’s dia- logue is reproduced, this is a reasonably success- ful adaptation of CARMILLA, though it never transcends its modest “made-for-television” pedi- gree. Choosing to focus on the novella’s depiction
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