Movie Review: "The Moth Diaries" (2012)

Image Source

Movie: "The Moth Diaries"
Director: Mary Harron
Year: 2011
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 22 minutes

When her best friend Lucy (Sarah Gadon) starts to act strange and accidents start to happen around their school, Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) believes it is all being caused by the new girl in school, Ernessa (Lily Cole). Others say Rebecca is just jealous of Lucy and Eressa's new found friendship but, Rebecca believes Ernessa is truly evil. 

Less horror than a drama, "The Moth Diaries" is a supernatural ghost story with a vampiresqe twist...well, kind of. The film takes place at an all-girls boarding school where best friends Rebecca, played by Sarah Bolger, and Lucy, played Sarah Gadon, are looking forward to the start of a great school year. All that changes with the arrival of the new girl, Ernessa, played Lily Cole, whose primary go-to creeper move is an over the shoulder dagger stare with her piercingly weird eyes. Rebecca is instantly suspicious of Ernessa, probably due to the constant onslaught of the aforementioned over the shoulder stares Ernessa throws at her (really, everyone), thinking there is something off about her. However, Lucy is mysteriously drawn to her from the second she pops up at their school. This overly dramatic teen friendship triangle is filled with suspicion, jealousy, and cattiness, and takes up a good chunk of the movie, meaning it takes a good, long while before it gets into any of the supernatural elements the movie has to offer. The girls in school outside of Rebecca, however, aren't convinced of any malicious activity. They constantly blow off all of Rebecca's concerns as jealousy, and we do feel that frustration along with Rebecca, but for a very different reason. I think our frustration has to do more with how poorly the script is written and how bad the dialogue is than if anything malicious is going on. Though listed as a mystery, there is no real mystery to it at all. Everything about the characters is clear to the audience very early on and everything is predictable down to the last detail. On top of this, the acting is either way too overly dramatic, or way too stiff to be considered acting at all. The film is horribly paced, and even though it is under 90 minutes, it drags extremely slowly through its run time. A boarding school is an overused but good setting for a horror film, and we do like that it at least tries to set up some sort of atmosphere rather than using bad jump scares for effectiveness. In the end, it doesn't matter one bit because none of it really works. The story is not real interesting, and despite their best efforts there isn't a real creepiness factor to it. There are no scares to be had, no thrills, no chills, no goosebumps, nothing. Outside of the occasional bloody scene, which seems to be the only reason for its R-rating, there isn't much in the way of horror. It's as if director Mary Harron was trying so hard to make this movie memorable and classic like her wonderful, iconic film "American Psycho," she sacrificed good direction in lieu of a more serious, yet worse film. Avoid this one at all costs.

My Rating: 3/10
BigJ's Rating: 3/10
IMDB's Rating: 4.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 15%
Do we recommend this movie: AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!
~~~~~~~~~~
Two years ago, we were watching: "Carrie"

One year ago, we were watching: "Cockneys vs Zombies"