When "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" was launched in 2012, it unleashed a whole new wave of creative media. Since then, web series have become a mainstream part of popular media. It became common to take old books and twist them into modern-day stories where the main characters keep video blogs and talk about their lives as the story's plot unfolds around them in a fresh new way that keeps up with the twenty-first century. In addition to "Pride and Prejudice" being adapted for the computer screen, "Emma," "Frankenstein," and "Little Women" have also been added to the list of books to be modernized in such a way. These books are popular and well known and, as a result of their notoriety, their counterparts have also been big hits.
"Carmilla," however, is one web series that has been revamped that is not part of popular culture. It’s surprising that it isn’t, since the show takes after a vampire story that pre-dates Dracula and inspired its author, Bram Stoker.
"Carmilla" the novella was written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu in 1871 and tells the story of a girl named Laura who, along with her father and her caretakers, takes in a girl named Carmilla. As the novel progresses, the girls of the town begin to fall ill and die, and Laura soon discovers that Carmilla may be the cause of it.
The web series, which is Canadian-based and currently released on the Youtube channel Vervegirl, has the same premise with a few twists. For one, the show does not take place in Eastern Europe, but a college in Austria, and Laura and Carmilla become roommates after Laura’s first one goes missing, along with a few other girls. Laura begins documenting her investigation via her Youtube channel. Because of this, the show has a very thin fourth wall, as Laura is aware of the audience and frequently interacts with them on her Twitter, which is run by some of the people who work on the show.
As with almost everything, there are some pros and cons to this format. The episodes are shorter, the character development is a little less obvious, and the one camera prevents us from seeing anything outside of Laura’s dorm room. These are the faults that most web series struggle with in general, but "Carmilla" has one very awesome upside that many web series lack.
The original novella was about a girl (Laura) who falls prey to a lesbian vampire (Carmilla). In fact, the original character Carmilla started what TVtropes.com describes as the lesbian vampire trope. But since this novella was written in the 1870s, she’s not portrayed in a very positive light. Carmilla is a monster, both because of her lesbianism and her vampirism. In fact, in the novella, the two pretty much become interchangeable, which reflects the mood towards lesbians in the 1870s. Lesbians were evil and preyed on women. They could convert young girls into their way of life through seduction. "Carmilla" fed off people’s fears at the time, and the lesbian trope wasn’t a positive one.
The web series, however, takes place in the twenty-first century, and, as a result, reflects the changes of the times. Yes, Carmilla is still a lesbian, but so is Laura and her friend Danny. One of the characters is even non-binary. All of it is positive. The creators of the series, Jordan Hall and Ellen Simpson, essentially took a novella about the dangers of lesbians and twisted it on its head to create a story about a girl desperately trying to find her roommate and save the campus, all while she begins to fall for her vampire roommate while that same roommate grapples with her morality. Hall and Simpson had an idea to re-vamp a book seeped in homophobia and turned it into a mystery/love story centered around two gay women. There have been other movies based around the novella before, but they’re older and don’t quite revolutionize the story the way the "Carmilla" web series' cast and crew does. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu must be rolling in his grave.
"Carmilla" is in its second season now, and new episodes are posted every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 pm on Vervegirl’s Youtube channel. It’s a pretty popular show within the LGBTQ community, especially women, but I highly suggest checking it out no matter what your sexuality. It’s a fun, fresh show, with monsters and heroes and villains and a love story big enough to battle it all.
