editor of the collection as well as the author of the introductions to each story contained therein. Fur- thermore, within the novella itself, all of the super- natural acts ascribed to Carmilla stem solely from the unverifiable accounts of male authority fig- ures—notably after Carmilla’s death. THE UN- WANTED similarly contains numerous scenes of its two female characters being instructed as to the na- ture and meaning of events they never witnessed by a patriarchal figure whose frail health, stoic religios- ity, and insistence on purity of motive are meant to convey an aura of benign and compassionate au- thority in defense against a malignant supernatural threat. As the narrative unfolds, however, both in the present and through increasingly revelatory flash- backs, a darker agenda is made clear, as the viewer is made privy to depictions of the events in question unmoored from Troy’s brutally myopic perspective— which equates female sexuality and independence with a form of witchcraft that not only justifies, but demands, suppression by any means necessary. The film’s uncompromising ending suggests that the central confidence scheme of CARMILLA is not the one allegedly perpetrated against a naïve young woman and her protective father by a foreign intruder, but rather the intentional mischaracterization of events and motives perpetrated against Laura, Carmilla, and even the reader by a patriarchy desperately clinging to its rapidly diminishing authority, and willing to commit atrocities in order to preserve it.
THE UNWANTED, like many adaptations of
CARMILLA, resembles a hall of mirrors, reflecting (and frequently bending) elements of both the origi- nal novella and its numerous cinematic adapta- tions. Aside from its overt lesbian content and deconstruction of Laura’s family dynamics, the screenplay references its literary source by having Mircalla deposited into the lives of the Picketts by means of a road accident (with a “colored fellow” here substituting for the mysterious black woman in the novella), and through its incorporation of prophetic dreams featuring deceased mothers. As in the novella, Laura’s mother’s liaison with Mircalla precedes her eventual demise from a wasting ill- ness—although an alternate (and here more likely) explanation is also offered. Similar to CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE (covered in VW 183), it is Laura who initiates romantic contact with her female com- panion, and the screenplay similarly avoids using the word “vampire” while making numerous refer- ences to witches. As in TWINS OF EVIL, religion is employed primarily as a bludgeon to suppress fe- male autonomy, and as an outlet for the basest sort of sexual sadism. The notion of Carmilla as an agent of change and liberation for an oppressed young woman had, of course, already formed the basis of THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE, and Wood’s film shares a number of similarities with the NIGHTMARE CLASSICS adaptation, not only in its setting, but also in its depiction of the
Carmilla (Christen Orr) and Laura (Hannah Fierman) in a love scene remarkable for its refusal to acquiesce to male fantasy.
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