Movie Review - Bible Based: The Moth Diaries

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Both Diaries

Plot Overview

tombstone Sixteen-year-old Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) enters in her diary, “My father had just died, my mother was a wreck, so I was sent here.” Now two years later she returns after summer break to reconnect with the friends she's made at Brangwyn, a secluded girls' school. The diary/narrative makes us privy to the inside scoop, what's under the hood, as it were. Prof. Kevin Wilson writes in a novel:

I was a kid, so I could be ugly in my thoughts. It made me happy sometimes, to not be pretty on the inside. And my mom, god, she hated it; she was this prim and proper woman, and she was real pretty, and it was like she'd never had a dark thought in her life. I think I scared her, like maybe it was something inside her that had unwittingly made me like this. Every little thing that wasn't from a lady's handbook, every sharp edge, she tried to sand it down. She had this running commentary, all the things that I was doing, which I wasn't aware of doing because I was a kid, and she made me feel like sh!t. She was used to my brothers, those dopey f_cking boys who tortured the dog and broke sh!t and were a hundred times worse than me, but they were boys, and that was okay. No, she focused only on me. (174)

schoolmarm wild dog Dragon lady, Miss Bobby lines up the girls for inspection and flags some of them for: short skirt, messy hair, or dirty shoes. New student Ernessa Bloch (Lily Cole) had never polished her shoes in her life so finds Miss Bobby's discipline a tad harsh. When Bobby's savaged corpse is later discovered on the grounds, Becca has her suspicions. Writer Joseph Roth reports, “During the war these girls attended high schools, lyceums, the so-called girls' schools. In peacetime they are the breeding places of illusions, ideals, and amorousness” (28). Becca has illusions (“I think you're imagining things”) about mysterious Ernessa, she idealizes her dead poet pop (Julian Casey), and she's developed a crush on cute English teacher Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman.)

Ideology

school cafeteria Their initial pep talk had to do with their time here providing a moral and spiritual foundation for their later life. In the cafeteria the girls discuss eating habits, one of them having two helpings of a rich desert and another eating not at all. What's needed is to strike a balance somewhere in the middle. It's as the apostle Paul wrote, (1Cor. 9:24-25) “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.” Examples of temperate eating are given in Prov. 23:1-3, Prov. 25:16, and Dan. 1:8-16. Since Prohibition we all know about temperance in drinking as per author Gregor von Rezzori: “for whatever reason, she began to show signs of a more tempered way of life. She never showed up at Charley's before seven and then only for two or three drinks” (6.) In this school the doper girls have limited access to their supply.

garlic green egg Methodology is important Mr. Davies is teaching a class on Beyond Belief: Writers and the Supernatural, starting with the literary origins of vampyres. Vampire stories, he explains, have three elements in common: Sex, Blood & Death. Lets look at temperance in each of these areas, further breaking it down to its constituent parts. Webster defines “temperance n 1: moderation in action, thought, or feeling: RESTRAINT.”

Starting with sex in action, if they haven't been with a guy over the summer, they won't find one here. It's not for nothing they call it a girls' school, and they can't leave the premises without permission. A lot of them are virgins, and they lack opportunity to do anything about it. Sofia (Laurence Hamelin), however, has arranged for a tryst with a guy from nearby Langley College, outside at night. They both lose their virginity. However, they are not married, she doesn't love him, and he doesn't even excite her. She has really gone too far. Becca finds a happy medium by allowing Mr. Davies to kiss her in his office while stopping him from getting to second base. She's gained some experience with a man, and the movie treats it as no harm, no foul.

Then there's blood on the mind. Rebecca says, “I haven't had my period in months.” That can't be good. She does get a minor nosebleed. Ernessa tells her, “The farmers said a nosebleed was the sign of good luck.” One can take a bloody nose in stride. It was after Becca discovered her father's corpse caked in blood, prone in the bathtub that she started getting recurring nightmares.

Finally there's feelings about death. Having staff or students croak necessitates group assemblies and/or counseling at the very least. Yet the chapel is lined with depictions of saints gone on, and nobody bats an eye. When Rebecca contemplates a picture of guests at the former Brangwyn Hotel in 1907, she sees a fuzzy image of Ernessa at the same age as now. And she discovers a diary in Ernessa's stuff, dated 1907. This is too much. That girl oughta be dead already.

Production Values

“” (2011) was directed by Mary Harron. It was written by Rachel Klein and Mary Harron, based on the book by Rachel Klein, loosely derived from “Carmilla” that was written by Irish novelist Sheridan Le Fanu and published in 1872, predating Bram Stoker's “Dracula” by some 25–26 years. The current events take place now in 2010. It stars Sarah Bolger, Sarah Gadon and Lily Cole. All the young actors did okay in some challenging parts.

MPA rated it R for some bloody images, sexuality, drug use and language. The movie is altogether too erotic and violent for kids. This art-house horror film was well- directed, edited and acted, and it also contained an uncommonly good horror atmosphere. The movie was shot in Oka, Québec, and Montreal. It gets right down to business with a runtime of 1 hour and 22 minutes.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

old book This one departs from standard Hollywood/TV fare to strike its own course by sourcing vampires in literature. It would be an oxymoron to call it a breath of fresh air, but one gets the idea that vampires may or may not even be real outside of books. Consider the one that inspired Roman Polanski's breakaway film, as described by Sam Wasson:

The only thing that rankled him about Rosemary's Baby, a novel by Ira Levin, was the presence of the devil, himself. Polanski did not believe in God, and therefore he did not believe in Satan. (Reality was sinister enough.) Going supernatural, Polanski felt, Levin had compromised the potential for actual terror. In his adaptation, Polanski would change that. “I thought that I can get around it by creating a film in which the idea of the devil could be conceived as Rosemry's folly. We never see anything supernatural in it and everything that occurred that has any kind of supernatural look occurs in a dream … it could have been all [a] question of her paranoia, of her suspicions during the pregnancy and postpartum craze.” (21–2)

What spooky stuff Rebecca witnesses may be just a figment of her overwrought imagination, a result of past trauma, and a product of mundane schoolgirl pressures to fit in. Others pass it off (“I won't let myself believe things I know aren't possible”) easily enough. This movie may or may not make a believer out of you, but those who look for life lessons won't be disappointed.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.

Ross, Joseph. Flight Without End. Original title in German: Die Flucht Ohne Ende. Copyright, 1930 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1930 first edition. Print.

Webster's Ninth New College Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts, Merriam-Webster, 1983. Print.

Movie: The Moth Diaries

Bible Based Review