The Moth Diaries (2012)

Struggling to move on after her father’s gruesome suicide, Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) joins a prestigious private school for girls. With the support of her mother and new friends at school, Rebecca begins to enjoy her life again…until Ernessa (Lily Cole) comes into the picture. Ernessa quickly emerges as the popular new girl in school. She throws parties, shares her drugs, and Ernessa slowly manipulates Rebecca’s friends one by one.

Angry and frustrated, Rebecca decides to spy on Ernessa. After a few brutal murders and a series of bizarre events, Rebecca comes to one conclusion: Ernessa is a vampire. Rebecca confides in Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), one of her teachers, but Ernessa continues to stalk Rebecca’s close friends. Can Rebecca convince the right people to believe in her vampire conspiracy before it’s too late?

So I’m scrolling through my TV guide menu on a Saturday afternoon, and I come across The Moth Diaries…..on the Chiller Channel. My hopes for this film immediately went down the drain. The Chiller Channel is dedicated to all things horror 24/7. It’s my favorite channel, but they play a lot of shitty horror films. The Chiller Channel is a graveyard for horrible independent horror films (mostly American), and you’ll usually see two types of horror films on Chiller: awfully good horror movies, that are fun to laugh at and mock, or unbearable abominations. They might throw you a bone every now and then, and you’ll see some old school classics (Evil Dead, Night Of The Living Dead, Chucky, etc.). Anyway, The Moth Diaries falls under the unbearable abominations category, unfortunately.

Overall, the acting is decent at best. Bolger is okay in the leading role, and Lily Cole is believable, as the mysterious and sometimes creepy new girl with a secret. But the rest cast doesn’t bring anything special to the table, and Scott Speedman’s performance as Mr. Davies is forgettable.

Director Mary Harron’s style is pretty dull, and Harron fails to provide any jump scares, tension, or real suspense.

The Moth Diaries is loaded with idiotic characters. As the story progresses, it’s painfully obvious Ernessa is a vampire. I mean, for fuck’s sake, she’s walking through windows, drinks blood from another girl’s neck, and she can fly. But Rebecca’s friends are very stupid and naïve. Ernessa tries to poison them with cocaine or weed (I’m not sure which one), and Rebecca is the ONLY one, who suspects something fishy,  when Ernessa walks through a fucking window, while sleepwalking on a ledge outside of the school. Oh, and one of Rebecca’s friend’s conveniently dies a slow and painful death, when she teams up with Ernessa.

The evidence continues to pile up (including the dead body of a P.E. teacher, and of course, Ernessa is the only one, who had a real motive to kill her), but for some asinine reason, NOBODY believes Ernessa could be a vampire. “you’re just jealous!” or “you need to see a shrink!.” This is what happens, when Rebecca accuses Ernessa of anything, and the stupidity from the supporting cast of characters in this film is unbelievable.

Also, the tonal shifts create too much confusion. Is the supposed to be a love story or a horror movie? Both? I couldn’t come up with a clear answer for these questions, because The Moth Diaries never maintains a consistent tone. Plus, Rebecca’s narrating almost gave me a headache.

I knew it. As soon as I saw The Moth Diaries pop up under the Chiller Channel, I knew this film would be a giant piece of shit. The Moth Diaries is a boring and dull vampire film with a messy story. Although, I won’t go with a zero rating, because the bloody gross-out scenes are genuinely sickening ( the aftermath of a suicide, and Rebecca’s bloody shower dream sequence with Ernessa). But yeah, it’s still a terrible, terrible film.

Final Rating: 1/10