Synopsis:[]
The chilling horror film, Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural , is about a young girl, Lila, who gets tricked into visiting a town full of vampires and creepy, mutant creatures. Lila got a letter in the mail saying that her dad was ill and she wanted to go visit him before he died. Lila was raised by a reverend because her father was a mobster who murdered people, including Lila's mother when he saw her sleeping with another man. Lila wanted to be a good Christian, so she goes on a hunt to find her father to forgive him and make ammends with him. Although, when Lila starts her adventure to find her father, she is left in very odd and scary situations that do not seem real. When she finally meets Lemora, a very intriguing and dark woman, she soon realizes she is a vampire. In my opinion, Lemora
Lemora and Lila (Photo credit: The Last Drive in WordPress)
was very fond of Lila for some reason and they have a very interesting bond. Lemora almost seems like a woman version of Dracula because she is very powerful, alluring and mesmerizing. Lila doesn't seem scared of her because of these qualities, just as Dracula did to people as well. After all, "the vampire’s true power is its ability to induce intense paranoia about the nature of social relations to ask, “who are the real bloodsuckers?” (Stott). This shows that the reason Lila stayed in because of Lemora's power to allure her in. In some way, the bond between them seens like a mother daughter relationship or possibly even more than that. Lemora is a very interesting character because she feasts on little children. Although, Lila's relationship with Lemora is different. When Lila is forced to kill her father in the end of the movie, Lemora kisses her to make her feel better and doesn't hurt her.
Is the movie Lila's nightmare or reality?[]
In the begnning of the movie, Lila is shown singing in church with the reverend. Her life is normal and all she wants is to be a good Christian. When she decides to go visit her father to say goodbye, she is taken into a fairytale world. All of the sudden, Lila's life flips upsidedown and she is taken into a dark, mysterious world full of evil. Throughout the entire movie, Lila stays pretty calm and watches everything that happens around her. The mutant creatures, the vampire Lemora , the creepy voices, laughs and sounds and the murderous acts all seem like a nightmare. When I was watching the movie, I was convinced that Lila was having a nightmare about her father and the darkside. However, as the movie went on, I began to question if it was reality because of how real the scenes started to become, such as when Lila killed her father. However, in the end of the movie it "flashes back" to Lila at church singing again. When this happened, I started to think that the movie was Lila's nightmare because everything was back to normal. Lila has a fear of evil, the outside world and her father because she was sheltered her entire life, so I think this movie was told from the perspective of Lila's mind and her fears as a young girl.
References[]
1. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London, England: Penguin, 2003.
2. Stott, Andrew McConnell. "The Poet, the Physician and the Birth of the Modern Vampire." The Public Domain Review. Web.
3. Hughes, Kathryn. “Gender Roles in the 19th Century.” Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians. British Library, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.