Review of Carmilla

I had the pleasure of seeing this on a big screen at Portsmouth's Making the Waves film festival with writer/director Emily Harris in attendance for a Q and A. She says it is loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu's original novella of the same name but it is certainly true to the spirit of his tale of Sapphic vampires (interestingly pre-dating Stoker's Dracula). To start with, Harris's background in fine art is evident throughout and present in nearly every frame. It looks beautiful. From the muted candlelight of the interiors to the filtering sunlight of the exteriors to characters framed in windows or in nature. Speaking of nature, this is compared and contrasted with human nature and we get close ups of both in all its beauty and ugliness. It is superbly cast with newcomers Hannah Rae as a convincingly wide eyed innocent and Devrim Lingnau bringing a mesmerising, feline, otherworldly quality to the title role. They anchor this tale of female sensual awakening superbly and they are backed by the better known names of Jessica Raine and Tobias Menzies, the former bringing an effective cold puritanism to the proceedings and the latter an incisive charisma. If there are any monsters in this film they are them, carrying out a horrific act based on scant evidence and like many wrongs in the world, 'for the best of reasons'. Greg Wise also has good moments as the patriarch of the house. The ambiguity of whether Carmilla is or isn't a vampire is judged perfectly-she rises late, has a fetish for blood, a dog is unsettled by her, her choice of reading matter seems to consist of black magic and eroticism and her 'victim' seems to be drained of life and vigour (and we have hints she might have been responsible for the fate of another young maiden) but we have cheeky little nods to vampiric movie tropes when we see her reflected in a mirror, handling a cross and walking in clear daylight. One gets the feeling the film maker is saying she is not but still leaving it up to us to decide. Shades of The Turn of the Screw and My Cousin Rachel occur to one. This film won't be for everyone, it is a slow burner, which I feel works in its favour, but may be exasperating to some and if you are expecting horror, it is certainly present, not in a supernatural form but in a more chilling, human one. The nod is given in some Freudian dream scenes featuring bloodletting and a mysterious man who turns out to be the acceptable face of magic, a village conjuror (Scott Silven). It certainly has all the trappings of a superior gothic drama and is a fresh and exciting addition to the genre. Previous film versions based on the novella include Hammer's The Vampire Lovers which is closer, bizarrely, to the original story, but it has an exploitative undertone that makes this subtler and more pensive film truer to the spirit of Le Fanu's piece.