Carmilla Film VS. Book

I won’t be writing my usual review for the book here since I *just* reviewed it, so here’s the link and if you want something shorter and not have a new tab, here we go…

Awesome classical novel with Carmilla being BEFORE Dracula, and lesbian. Book is super atmospheric, short, and was a great read.

Onward to the movie!!

Every now and again you stumble across a film adapted from a book and the only thing kept is the title. This is what the Carmilla (2019) film was like. There was so little similarities that I even double checked that I was watching the right film..okay that’s a lie I knew I was because the names of the characters are the same.

Objectively it wasn’t a bad film but it took every neat thing about the book, left it out and turned it into more of a vague-ish story about vampires but really just a story about young women being persecuted for loving each other. So….interesting? Yes. Good adaptation? Not really. I loved the relationship between Laura and Carmilla in the film but the heart of the novel regarding what made it ‘scary’ and what made it stand out a lot to me, was lost. We like Carmilla and Laura in the film, we like Carmilla and Laura in the book, but the translation of Carmilla herself, the vampire parts of her are lost in this film version. Which is sad because the film had some neat ideas, some great chemistry and then took it to being actual supernatural to a more metaphorical approach. Not bad, just…not what I was hoping for.

So like I wouldn’t recommend this necessarily if you were looking for a good film version of the book, but I would in general recommend this book. For that alone, I gave it 3/5 cups of coffee and have posted this about a week and a half later than I wanted to.

I know, I am a well oiled machine.