Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page) is preparing for a late summer shoot on her fourth feature film, an adaptation of The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein. The story revolves around a boarding school for teenage girls and the onset of mysterious deaths that may or may not involve vampirism. Screen Daily reports that she’s selected Lily Cole and Scott Speedman to star, as a new student and the resident literature teacher, respectively.
Edward Pressman is producing, a role he also took on for American Psycho, and said this project is “very smart, very visual, very feminine yet very powerful.” Harron, who also wrote the screenplay, commented that “this is a chillingly atmospheric horror story with real emotional depth.” She also added that she “tried to stay true to Rachel Klein’s novel in the way it re-works and updates the Gothic tradition and the whole notion of girl-on-girl vampires. Lily Cole is a very talented actress and… I’ve long been a fan of Scott Speedman.”
I’d say we’ve had enough of a vampire resurgence, but there are a good number of talented people getting into the genre (with obvious exceptions), so… so be it. I’d count myself as being interested in watching any damn film Mary Harron makes no matter what the subject matter or source material.
