Proof of its continuing influence, were it needed: Google celebrated CARMILLA’s 200th anniversary with this Edward Gorey-like banner.
character study about a friendship destroyed by su- pernatural tragedy. Forced by financial hardship to transfer to a college near her hometown, Brandy (Lora Meins) is surprised and delighted to discover that she will be rooming with her childhood friend Andrea (Melissa Johnson), now a Goth girl trapped in a down- ward spiral of depression and self-mutilation follow- ing the suicide of her fiancé. To celebrate their reunion, Andrea gifts Brandy with a bottle of “Carmilla Brandy” imported from Romania. Unbeknownst to the two, the liquor is poisoned with the blood of its name- sake, causing all who ingest it to be transformed into one of the undead. When the newly-vampiric Brandy uses her powers to protect Andrea from those who mistreat her, Andrea is forced into a decision that will test the depth of their friendship. BLOODWINE, the first film for just about every- one involved, gets off to a rough start with a pro- logue that mistakenly tries to imitate the typical Hollywood blockbuster. But even this scene contains a moment of startling originality—depicting Carmilla’s unique defense against being staked—that provides the first inkling of the intelligence involved in the pro- duction. Things pick up considerably once the two female leads are permitted to interact, demonstrat- ing not only Meins’ and Johnson’s considerable act- ing talent, but also the script’s ear for natural-sounding dialogue. Emphasizing character over plot (a con- cept largely foreign to DTV horror), the film is entirely devoid of erotic content, but the supernatural scenes, though often a bit too broadly played, are handled effectively and the film remains surprisingly emotion- ally involving up to its conclusion. Carmilla here bears little resemblance to Le Fanu’s creation (even her birthplace is misidentified), but rather serves as a female arch-vampire in the tradition of Dracula. Made with sensitivity and intelligence, and well- served by its immensely talented female leads, BLOODWINE deserves a wider audience.
“The image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alternations— sometimes the playful... beautiful girl, sometimes the writhing fiend.”
Although it is impossible to sum up such a disparate body of work, an examination of the eighteen film adaptations of CARMILLA makes it clear that the definitive version of Le Fanu’s no- vella has yet to be made. While it appears churl- ish to complain about this fact when more famous characters such as Dracula, Franken- stein’s Monster, and even Tarzan have never made the jump from book to screen intact, one can’t help thinking that Carmilla suffers from a unique set of handicaps. Her matriarchal nature and disinterest in heterosexual fantasy scripts would seem to pose a threat to male audiences, while the predatory nature of her lesbian sexual- ity would likely alienate females hoping to claim her as a sister or empowering role model. Per- haps this is why filmmakers choose only to por- tray parts of the character—to fluff her up to fit male fantasy stereotypes, to soften her to make her more sympathetic, or to eliminate her girlish charm so that she more closely resembles the prototypical supernatural predator. As a woman and a lesbian, as a character who is simulta- neously innocent and depraved, charming and coldly vicious, she appears too alien, too much of an outsider, to find a place even within a genre dedicated to the outré. Horror film audiences have been conditioned to want, at the end, to be told whether a female character is a really “charming girl” or a “writhing fiend.” Carmilla’s “problem” is that she is both—a problem that we, unfortunately, seem unable to face.
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