compliance. Even more puzzling are the repeated attempts to elicit viewer sympathy for Louise’s loneliness, especially after it is revealed that Charlotte had been abducted in a similar man- ner in 1923, cutting her off from her husband and young daughter. Viewed within the context, this narrative’s plea for compassion is no less grotesque than an invitation to pity the rapist whose victim rebuffs his advances. The film does, however, resemble its source in its gender and sexual politics, reflecting Le Fanu’s unease with lesbian sexuality and feminine power. For a film released in 2010, WE ARE THE NIGHT is remarkably reactionary in its depiction of lesbi- anism, as it is made clear that Lena, Charlotte, and Nora are all heterosexual women who have been abducted and enslaved through addiction by a mistress who demands not only sexual favors, but love. Although the film, at one point, alludes to the fact that only humans possessing “the gift” may be transformed into vampires once bitten, one still cannot help but wonder why, with the time and resources available to her, Louise could not pursue a mate with a more compatible orienta- tion. Thus, one cannot help but surmise that she wishes to transform her prey sexually as well as physically, a depiction of lesbianism as both preda- tory and corrupting that is quite consistent with Le Fanu’s Victorianism. With regard to the film’s gen- der politics, it is important to note how Louise ex- plains that all of the remaining 100 vampires in existence are female, with the males having long been dispatched not only by humans, but also by the females of their species for being “too loud, too greedy, and too stupid.” Thus, as in CARMILLA, women are portrayed as having a distinct advan- tage in the war between the sexes. However, much like the pigs in Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM who grow more and more to resemble the human masters they have overthrown, it is the very characteristics that Louise derisively characterizes as masculine that will eventually lead to her downfall. Despite its weaknesses, the film does offer two scenes of particular merit, though neither is in any way related to Le Fanu’s CARMILLA. The first is its original and convincing depiction of what vampire decadence might look like, with the blood-intoxi- cated protagonists drunkenly dancing vertically up walls and across ceilings, and then playing a form of “chicken” which involves determining who can remain outside the longest during sunrise. The second is the scene in which Charlotte visits her daughter, now an elderly woman nearing death in a nursing home, and shepherds her gently into death with a lullaby. The latter scene possesses a
genuine emotional gravity lacking in the rest of the film, which is largely an action-fantasy hybrid filmed with a music-video aesthetic. Unfortunately, even these strengths are soon forgotten in the wake of a conclusion that succeeds only as a homage to Ron Howard’s SPLASH (1984).
Though deserving of some credit for having the audacity to consider CARMILLA as the foundation of an action vehicle, WE ARE THE NIGHT proves a rather trivial affair, a feminized version of THE LOST BOYS (1987) for the CGI era.
“Girls are like caterpillars when they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae... each with their peculiar propensities, necessities, and structure.”
THE MOTH DIARIES 2011, MPI, $9.98 DVD-1, $19.98 BD-A
Written and directed by Mary Harron (AMERI- CAN PSYCHO), THE MOTH DIARIES is unique among the films discussed here, in that Carmilla does not appear in the narrative as a character, but rather as a literary work that is both read and referenced throughout the film. This is be- cause DIARIES is not an adaptation of Le Fanu’s novella, but rather of Rachel Klein’s 2002 novel that brilliantly filters CARMILLA’s narrative through the prism of that decade’s preoccupation with adolescent female psychopathology—including bullying, self-mutilation, anorexia, and suicide. In fact, THE MOTH DIARIES is such a worthwhile literary successor to CARMILLA that it demands consideration independent from its far inferior cinematic adaptation.
Set in the late 1960s, Klein’s novel is presented as the journal of the unnamed 16-year-old narra- tor beginning her third year at Brangwyn, the ex- clusive girls’ boarding school (once a convalescence hotel) to which she was sent following the suicide of her father, an acclaimed poet. The narrator’s loneliness and alienation, stemming from her Ju- daism and status as a victim of family tragedy, is alleviated through her obsessive preoccupation with her best friend, Lucy Blake. Initially thrilled to be finally sharing a suite with the object of her devo- tion, the narrator finds her plan for a perfect year thwarted by the arrival of Ernessa Bloch, a myste- rious new student marked by an intangible “for- eignness,” an air of contemptuous superiority, and
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