'The Moth Diaries' Burns in Flames. Cataclysm.

For an anti-Twilight like me, I easily attach to a vampire film that asserts itself "without sexual porn and shining under the sun fangers". Perhaps that was the reason why I added the 'Fright Night' remake as one of my current favorites in the sweeping fields of horror. It was fast-paced, darkly humorous and deliciously violent. This latest from Mary Harron, the velvet fingertips behind the slick film American Psycho, is of something utterly different. And I don't like that kind of different. In truth, this adaptation of the 2002 novel was mishandled in a cataclysmic manner, losing that grip, tense and insane that I love about Mary Harron.

In a posh all-girls boarding school is Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), Lucy (Sarah Gadon) and Ernessa (Lily Cole). (Of course a bunch of other girls are in too.) With the hopes of recovering from the unsettling knowledge that her father had just died, and more, her mother is in an emotional wreck, Rebecca enrolls in the elite girl's school where she re-unites with her best friend, Lucy. Things quickly work for the two: chattering with the other girls; and sometimes hitting smoke. With a much slower pace, things become suddenly mystique and things quickly shatter into pieces with the arrival of the mysterious and aloof, Ernessa.

Inexplicably, the peer that was Rebecca's only hope of recovering from her past's tragedy, diminishes in figures of one. One Valerie Tan (the actor) is compelled by Ernessa to throw out a chair out of the window shattering it. She gets expelled, prodigy. The following events are much darker, death is involved. And Ernessa, I would finally reveal, the vampire intruder has something to do with these. Greatly.

The woman behind the camera, Mary Harron has commendable skills that are evidenced by her complicated subject matters that she manages to work. However in her latest feature, that doesn't seem to translate and fact is, she slipped a little too soon. The characters seemed to wave a war against one another and there is no treaty. Whether they were written good or not, the medley of persona are fighting that you don't get a chance to have a clue of who's the main role. The premise of the 'great bond' between Rebecca and Lucy haven't been enough to make amends to the flaws of the film.

With such disastrous pacing that is reminiscent to the crawling of a needy for speedy tortoise, 'Moth Diaries' results as a less-effective, less-tense and less-shocking horror film. It solutes the possibility of the salvation by the good actors whose names are spelled: Bolger and Cole. Bolger deciphers the vulnerable and brings the fierce to the screen, yes, but this is not greatly appreciated and almost negligible when compared to the brooding atmosphere that Lily Cole almost brought out. The model/actor's body and distinct facial features selects her as one of the perfect picks for fantasy and surreal genres of Hollywood.

At most, it drabs of the things that we want to feel: that tight grip and that fidgeting scare. At least, 'Diaries' brings out an excellent imagery. Only that. I guess.