The Curse of Styria

2014 "Love requires sacrifice."
4.9| 1h39m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 21 August 2014 Released
Producted By: Pioneer Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

In 1989, Lara Hill, accompanies her art historian father to an abandoned castle across the Iron Curtain. From a car crash outside of the castle, emerges the beautiful and mysterious Carmilla. Lara secrets Carmilla into the castle and the two are drawn into an intoxicating relationship. But when Carmilla mysteriously disappears, and women of the town begin committing suicide, Lara’s psychic wounds erupt into a living nightmare that consumes the entire town of Styria.

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Reviews

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
beorhhouse An interesting Gothic film that is more creepy than outright terrifying. There's quite a bit of blood, and it should be remembered that in Styria as well as other parts of the Old Country there is no difference between a vampire and a witch. The word used for both, interchangeably, is 'striga', plural 'strigoi'. This is a great study for anyone even remotely interested in vampire lore, but more questions are asked here than are answered--something some like, I however do not. The plight of abused women seems to be the primary theme, and what an abused woman can do about her predicament. Familial love, though, wins out in the end and the striga is forced to leave because of the intensity of that love. J.S. Le Fanu wrote quite a different story, but this is a nice adaptation or inspired piece, and the lesbian theme is really downplayed and made to look more like what Le Fanu intended and wrote as opposed to what today's critics like to repeat for the masses. The cinematography and acting are excellent. I only give this film a seven because the phantasmagoria wasn't phantasmagoric enough, possibly because the reality scenes were too real and interspersed with the nightmare far too often.
Robert J. Maxwell I missed the first half hour of this horror film that I guess is an updated version of Sheridan LeFanu's precursor of "Dracula", so these few comments must be qualified.It's a gloomy and atmospheric film, shot with deliberate artiness in a cold and inhospitable castle in wintry Hungary. The land is sparsely populated with superstitious villagers who always dress in black and are hostile to the point of menace. There are few daylight scenes and they're photographed through a chill fog. It makes you not want to visit Hungary and to hell with the tokay.Living in the castle for some reason are Steven Rhea and his daughter Eleanor Tomlinson. The castle also appears to be the home of Carmilla, Julia Pietrucha, who befriends Tomlinson and more or less seduces her. Don't worry -- no nudity, alas. Nobody else seems to be able to see Carmilla so she may be a ghost.The general idea is that if you kill yourself you become a vampire -- or something. I missed that half hour but I'm not sure it would have cleared up this turgid plot.Steven Rhea has always had an expressively droopy face, but time seems to have carried his features closer to the Platonic ideal of droopiness. It's a magnificent face.Eleanor Tomlinson's face is pretty good too. She's innocent, winsome, and it adds to her charm. But there is so much cutting with glass, cannibalism, spades through the hearts of corpses that then spout blood, that I can't explain how Tomlinson wound up with blood smeared across her lips as she and Rhea manage to escape the tumult at the end.The atmosphere is great but the plot is even more elliptical. I couldn't see watching it just in order to capture than missing half hour.
a_baron This starts reasonably enough, an academic travels behind the then Iron Curtain to undertake a restoration project on what in the UK would be a listed building. Travelling with him is his daughter, who is a troubled young woman, not the least on account of the razor blade she carries around with her which has been used to, well, just look at the scars on her arm.Then there is Carmilla; she is real enough on account of her escaping from a crashed car, but exactly how real are her nocturnal visitations, and is she a vampire or a witch?The former, 'twould appear, because this is an update of the novel "Carmilla", a precursor to Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Alas, unlike the 2013 adaptation of "The Monkey's Paw", our Gothic lesbian femme fatale does not age well, and is more than a little confusing, as is the end of this extremely disappointing film.
gojiroth Wow, I haven't seen a movie like this in a long time. This is a classical Gothic experience, set in the 1980s. In Hungary. Dang it. Long story time: It's beautifully shot, especially considering the relative newcomer status of the Directors (there's two by the way). The script really shows the work that was put into it, that they worked it until it was the best possible version of the story possible. The story, by the way is an adaptation of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. It's a vampire tale in the most classical of molds, though it's also a tale of modern youth (done so seamlessly that the fantastical elements could easily be the product of a troubled mind, though the mental illness aspect is still treated rather realistically). Actually it hands a certain problematic part of culture (cutting. I'll say it. The main character was a cutter) very well, not promoting it nor demonizing it. The acting is fantastic, Stephen Rea providing a decent performance as the distracted dad (ergo not in it very much but being focal to the resolution), Julia Pietrucha turns in a very decent performance as the seductive and mysterious Carmilla, but Eleanor Tomlinson is the eyes of the movie. She provides a character that is tortured, yet curious, enthralled, yet wishing for freedom. The location is one of a kind and provided a greater character to the scenes. This movie needs to be seen and supported, as film like this needs to be made. It's available on Amazon and Itunes as Angels of Darkness, so check it out if you have the chance.