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Most such adaptations are poor, to say the least. Many are trashy, brimming with sexual innuendo but no tension, drama, or even eroticism. Others, like Hammer Studios' The Vampire Lovers at least qualify as guilty pleasures. Roger Vadim at least tried to do a more-or-less faithful rendering in Blood and Roses (its English title). But even he changed to period, location, the focus and introduced a male love interest (not at all uncommon is such adaptations).
As of today, I have every known filmed version of the story save two--one of which is believed lost (a BBC production from the 1960s) and the other was a French t.v. film from the 1980s (am working on finding that one). Hardly any even try to capture the peculiar flavor of the original.
Granted, this is anything but an easy task. Much of the "action" takes place off stage (or page, if you prefer). The discovery of the vampire and her destruction follow almost immediately. No chases across the mountains, no futile efforts to keep the undead from her prey. In essence, the entire novella is from the victim/beloved's POV, a waif named Laura who usually
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But consider...Styria (the setting) is a sparsely populated land of mountains and forests dotted with farms and the occasional schloss. Following invasions and war its towns and castles mostly lie fallow. It is an empty land, a haunted landscape. Mists hover around the near-empty woods and valleys. On the night of a full moon, a stranger comes to a lonely family--a girl named Laura living with her widowed father. What's more, this stranger (the title character) recognizes Laura as someone from her childhood dreams. Laura recalls Carmilla the same way! Thus is born a mysterious friendship which proves to be much more.
Imagine if you will a motion picture as atmospheric as Picnic at Hanging Rock or Let The Right One In or The Duellists (plus maybe a touch of Lets Scare Jessica To Death). Laura and Carmilla walk together amid the lime trees, wheedling secrets from one another, sharing a dream not only in the past but to some extent right now.
Laura in the novel is telling what happened to someone--we do not know who. How reliable a narrator might she be? What was left unsaid? For example, who can say where Carmilla dwells at other times? She must sleep in her grave, yes, but who are the people who brought her? If anything, the coach and aristocratic woman who calls herself the vampire's
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Along those lines, I would suggest an unconventional choice for Laura. Some fans suggest Emma Watson for the role, but given the nature of Laura--this lonely, rather naive girl who so fascinates an unaging nosferatu--my suggestion is another Harry Potter alumn. Evanna Lynch.
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Running the household is Madame Perradon, Laura's governess and for all practical purposes her mother-figure. Since the casting in this matter is
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Maybe somebody someday will do a version not unlike the one described here. Maybe. Stranger things have happened.
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