Love and Monsters, Part 1
Oct. 29th, 2019 10:54 pmSince I had so much fun doing my Top 13 Scariest Episodes of Doctor Who countdown last year, I decided to do something similar with my favorite sub-genre of cinema: the Gothic movie. Big difference is this time I'm not opening it up to a poll. Nope, instead I'm going to talk about my personal favorites, and I'm counting down from 13 to 1.
Now, when I say "Gothic," I'm not always entirely sure how to verbalize what that means to me. I don't necessarily mean "horror," although the two often coincide. There's a certain interplay of darkness and romance, always underscored by style, that conveys "Gothic" without always adhering to the expected tropes. In other words, love and monsters. It's lavish atmosphere, a sense of opulence masking death and decay, and a creeping dread. What it means is atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. And that's what all these films offer in the best, and most brutal, ways.
Ready? Let's do this!
13 - The Moth Diaries (2011)
This adaptation of Rachel Klein's epistolary novel of the same name is equal parts Dracula and Girl, Interrupted. Brought to life by the same writer/director team behind American Psycho, this is the story of the intense, sometimes suffocating, and often possessive nature of friendships between teenage girls. The atmosphere lies in the school itself, with secrets lurking beyond curved corridors or inside locked roomsl. Everyone in the school seems to have a story, and the stories are both terrible and fascinating at once. This movie is criminally overlooked, even with Lily Cole as the probably-a-vampire exchange student, Ernessa. There's also a lot of great meta-commentary in the literature class about why Gothic stories are important. Word to the wise: If your name is "Lucy," don't hang out with vampires. It will not end well for you.
( 12 thru 10 here )
(Cross-posted to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhoda_rants.)
Now, when I say "Gothic," I'm not always entirely sure how to verbalize what that means to me. I don't necessarily mean "horror," although the two often coincide. There's a certain interplay of darkness and romance, always underscored by style, that conveys "Gothic" without always adhering to the expected tropes. In other words, love and monsters. It's lavish atmosphere, a sense of opulence masking death and decay, and a creeping dread. What it means is atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. And that's what all these films offer in the best, and most brutal, ways.
Ready? Let's do this!
13 - The Moth Diaries (2011)
This adaptation of Rachel Klein's epistolary novel of the same name is equal parts Dracula and Girl, Interrupted. Brought to life by the same writer/director team behind American Psycho, this is the story of the intense, sometimes suffocating, and often possessive nature of friendships between teenage girls. The atmosphere lies in the school itself, with secrets lurking beyond curved corridors or inside locked roomsl. Everyone in the school seems to have a story, and the stories are both terrible and fascinating at once. This movie is criminally overlooked, even with Lily Cole as the probably-a-vampire exchange student, Ernessa. There's also a lot of great meta-commentary in the literature class about why Gothic stories are important. Word to the wise: If your name is "Lucy," don't hang out with vampires. It will not end well for you.
( 12 thru 10 here )
(Cross-posted to
rhoda_rants.)