The Carmilla Movie

For better or worse, The Carmilla Movie felt like fan service. I’m fan of the web series so I was fine with it. It did give me what I wanted to see, after all. It’s nice to go into a movie already invested in the characters and relationships and just let the creators cater to me and my wants.

The Carmilla Movie picks up five years after the web series left off. Carmilla, who was a vampire for the duration of the web series is currently human. She and Laura, the web series’ narrator live happily together. However, their regular, non-supernatural life is interrupted when Laura starts having gothic nightmares. Laura’s nightmares lead them and their band of diverse, queer friends (and one token straight) to a house where Carmilla’s previous victims are ghosts or something. Carmilla’s ex-lover Ell is also there. Ell tricks Carmilla into doing a magic thing that she claims will help the ghosts move on. But twist! it’s really a way for Ell to return to the mortal coil. Carmilla, Laura and their assorted queer associates must stop Ell or risk the other ghosts and themselves being trapped in a weird, nightmare realm for all eternity.

I have mixed feelings about the gothic tone that is present in the dream sequences, flashbacks and weird, dream-realm in the movie. On the one hand, I’m always a slut for gothic stuff and it’s definitely interesting to see this aesthetic in a lighter movie. On the other hand, the movie just hasn’t the tone or budget to go full-on gothic. Often I did sort of wish I was watching one of the sleazy, 70′s versions of Carmilla. This is both because I love sleaze and also I love a proper gothic tone. The Carmilla Movie can’t fully achieve that because it is a comedy. Also, I miss all the blood. The Carmilla Movie is pretty bloodless.

What’s good about The Carmilla Movie is because it follows a web series, the lead lesbians have a pre-established relationship. I like a meet-cute and the fun, early days of a relationship like anyone else. But on the other hand, there’s a lot of shortcuts you can take with a relationship if it is pre-established and just jump right into lesbian bliss. It’s doubly nice to see that Carmilla and Laura haven’t suffered lesbian bed death after being together for five years.

On that note, let’s talk about that sex scene. Because apparently I’ve decided part of reviewing WLW movies is reviewing sex scenes. Yes, I know I don’t have to. Anyway, the lesbian sex scene in The Carmilla Movie. It’s really hot and I liked it. It’s not even particularly sexually explicit but, like everything in the movie, it’s made to be fan service and well, I’m a fan. Natasha Negovanlis and Elise Bauman have good chemistry and they’re in corsets and stuff. It’s all very good and relevant to my and probably the general audience for this film’s general interests. This is a lesbian sex scene that really seems to be filmed to please a WLW audience which is a delightful change of pace.

If you like the web-series, you will like The Carmilla Movie. However, I am not sure if jumping right into the movie would be enjoyable. While The Carmilla Movie works as an epilogue to the larger series, I do not know how strongly it stands on its own. There is a tone to Carmilla which I think does work better in the web series. The only reason it works as a movie is because I was already in tune with it. If you’re going into The Carmilla Movie cold, the film may look too low budget, not introduce characters particularly well and would be generally too inside baseball to enjoy. But, for viewers of the web series like me, none of these complaints are relevant. I just got to watch my favourite fictional depiction of my favourite fictional vampire in a feature-length movie.

Overall rating: 6.4/10

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