If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Some decrepit old ghost/vampire lady-thingy impersonating a sexy young dyevochka is really a moth, or actually 1000s of moths (we're made out of atoms, she of moths), and she is like really old and stuff and likes to kill young girls for fun and she's like such a filthy old pervert that she even has sex with one of them, which is technically pedo territory, right? But you can't arrest moths for sexual molestation, can you?Anyway, Lily Cole Moth has her eye on killing Sarah Bolger Non-Moth - that's her ultimate goal, and one which Sarah figures out only at the end of the movie, way way way long after even the dumbest of us dumb viewers had already figured it out an hour earlier. So if Lily Moth wanted to kill Sarah all along, why did she wait so long and kill several people who aren't Sarah Bolger? No, Rachel Klein the author doesn't know and neither does Mary Harron the director. They don't bother to tell us WHY Lily came to that school to kill random people, nor why moths hate water (do they?), nor why moths are into same-sex activity. (If moths were inclined that way, wouldn't there be a LOT less of them?)In fact, there's a strong whiff of lesbianism permeating the entire movie which makes me suspect that either the director or the author are leaning that way. They even portray the only heterosexual encounter in the movie - the actual intercourse - as painful and unpleasant.And those of you who think that your patience will be rewarded with a grand finale Sarah vs Moth Lily, you're sadly mistaken, because Sarah sneaks up to Moth Lady real easy, sets her on fire, kills her, and that's pretty much it, and the whole movie was slow for no reason and it looked like a build up to a harrowing finale (which turned out to fizzle like a tiny firecracker) and quite predictable and Lily is far too tall for these small girls to be playing anyone but Godzilla or a ginger King Kong, and the make-up department should be hung for turning her into a brunette and giving her a goofy Goth-chick makeover - as if all mysterious vampire moth ladies are into Goth fashion - which made her look unattractive which is quite a feat because she's actually quite pretty (as is Sarah), and this movie is sort of like a stylized version of a lesbian slasher flick and there's not much more else to say about this mediocrity.

I randomly selected and streamed this film last night on Netflix, enjoyed it, and checked today to see what others were saying about it. I was surprised to find harsh words about the film, and they made me wonder why people would react this way to a well-made story like this. The cinematography is lovely. The music is so well suited that it plays unnoticed beneath the visuals – never clashing with the emotional content of the scenes. The sound editing is top notch. The young actors are all excellent. Set design is spot on for the story. No dialog is wasted. Etc. etc.So what was the problem? My personal reaction was quite good. When it started, I expected a bad film – another sappy story about girls at school. In fact, the only scene I didn't care for was the girls "partying" in their rooms. Such a cliché rendering. But the rest was endearing. The film seduced me, drawing me in further and further as I watched. It's not revolutionary, to be sure, but why does every film have to be revolutionary? We don't hold music to that type of criteria. "Oh, another blues song. That's been done…"Harron's achievement here is in the mood of this piece. I see people complaining about the connecting scenes, and I think about how much they must hate a film like Upstream Color or Tree of Life or Melancholia (though those films are rated quite a bit higher). The Moth Diaries is not like those films because it has a much more grounded story. Why are people down on this film? My best guess is that the negative reactions this film received are indicative of the altered nature of film itself. The Moth Diaries takes a different tack than contemporary blockbusters. It's not The Conjuring (a great horror film), which twists every few minutes and keeps throwing shocks at you, making you squirm in your seat. But it's not intended to be. It's not a shock piece. It is a mood piece, and Harron does a beautiful job of establishing a consistent mood throughout, a mood that captures appropriate emotional content for the age-rage of the characters in the story. Had this movie been released in the 1970s, it would have found a large, receptive audience. I, for one, found it refreshing to watch a film that takes its time building mood and environment and character. The strength of the film is its subtlety. Unfortunately, it appears that subtlety is lost on many contemporary film goers. For me, The Moth Diaries returned me to the days when movies could be captivating and sensory without abandoning story in service to "art." I liked it and I'll be tracking Mary Harron's work from now on.

Much better premise than a generic vampire film like twilight. The remote feeling of the boarding school translates well, as does the dissonant relationship between Rebecca and pretty much everyone else at the school. The ambiguity of the supernatural element embodied by Lilly Cole in her role as Ernessa leaves the viewer questioning what she is, all the way till the very end. At the end of the film it is indeed up to the viewer to decide that for themselves but you definitely find yourself questioning what kind of supernatural agency you are dealing with. As far as the relationship between the Moths and Ernessa, that seems to be more of a poetic expression than an actual supernatural impetus, at least as far as this viewer is able to interpret. As a fan of TV shows like the X-files I appreciated the mysterious approach to that aspect of the story.The main gripe I have with this film is it is simply not long enough. Making it feel like an extended pilot episode of an abandoned TV show. A film like this could easily have expanded on its premise for at least 2 hours. But it shares this flaw with many modern films, I just found it frustratingly short. It doesn't even hit the hour and 30 minute mark, the screen credits begin to role out at about an hour and 18 minutes in. Ever have a feeling that a film just ends too quickly? That is the feeling I got from this one. A shame because it could have been amazing. Instead it was just a fairly good but short supernatural suspense/thriller or whatever. Something I may revisit at some point, but not feeling that extreme magnetic pull as with other films of this kind due to its shorter than average length.

Based on a popular young adult novel but equally indebted to Sheridan Le Fanu's classic novella "Carmilla," The Moth Diaries is a story of angst, loss, and the dividing line between reality and fantasy. It might also be a vampire story. At least, one of the characters thinks another girl is a vampire, one who transforms into a flurry of moths on cold, moonlit nights. Can the protagonist save her best friend from the vampire's evil intentions, or is the vampire really just playing with her real prey? For the most part, the script does justice to its literary inspirations, and perhaps one reason the film failed to equal the popularity of the original novel is that it is too quiet, too subtle, too psychological. Is it a horror movie? Not really, at least not in the accepted sense. Fans of slasher films or torture porn certainly won't find what they're looking for in this movie, and for all that The Moth Diaries is marketed as a vampire film it's debatable--even doubtful--if it's really even that. The Moth Diaries is more psychological drama than anything else, albeit a very Gothic one.As a Gothic melodrama that explores the nature of grief, love, and the painful process of personal evolution, The Moth Diaries is extremely successful. The plot remains ambiguous and even after the closing credits much remains uncertain, but it is clear that whatever has actually happened, our main character has, somehow, left one epoch behind and emerged into a new one. Anyone who can relate to that may find much in The Moth Diaries to identify with.