In 1989, English art historian Dr. Hill (Stephen Rea, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE) travels behind the Iron Curtain with his daughter Lara (Eleanor Tomlinson, THE ILLUSIONIST) to Styria and a medieval castle turned sanitarium closed and uninhabited since 1917. The castle is set for demolition by the communist government - represented by the sinister General Spiegel (Jacek Lenartowicz, KATYN) - so Hill has just ten days to restore and remove two murals (as well as a rumored hidden third one) to preserve the legacy of an artist commissioned to paint them at the santiarium before dying of consumption. Lara - who has been kicked out of boarding school because of a violent attack she attributes to a shadowy figure who has terrorized her since she was a child - is depressed and self-injurious until she witnesses an attempted hit-and-run by the general's car on young Carmilla (model Julia Pietrucha). Without her father's knowledge, Lara brings Carmilla into the castle and treats her injuries. In turn, Carmilla reveals to Lara the secrets of the castle including the crypt unearthed behind one of the murals and local legends of the land fed by virgin blood. The general comes in search of the girl who he describes as an unstable orphan that the locals believe to be a thieving gypsy or a witch. When the general catches Carmilla alone, she appears to kill herself to escape his clutches only to then show up for another nocturnal romp with Lara. When local girls begin to go crazy and commit suicide, the town elders blame Lara who discovers that an age old epidemic of virgin suicides is repeating itself and Carmilla may be the cause.

Released stateside as ANGELS OF DARKNESS, the original title of this American/Hugarian co-production (with additional unit footage shot in Poland) STYRIA should clue vampire literature fans from the get-go that this is a modern adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's novella "Carmilla" (adapted many times including Roger Vadim's BLOOD AND ROSES, Camillo Mastrocinque's TERROR IN THE CRYPT, and Vicente Aranda's THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE as well as the basis of Hammer's VAMPIRE LOVERS with the character resurrected again for LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and TWINS OF EVIL) long before it is cited in the opening credits. The backstory involving the former sanitarium, the murals, and their painter needlessly drags out the first act even as it is underdeveloped (Carmilla's mentions of the virgin suicides every one hundred years can be interpreted as jokes or references to local folklore made to frighten Laura). When the film finds its rhythm, it is a nice throwback to pre-TWILIGHT modern vampire films (including the indie ones of the nineties), and it might have been more interesting and successful had it actually been made closer to the era in which it is set (like the SUBSPECIES films shot in post-communist Romania). Although blood is spilled and apparently drunk, the film does not use the word vampire even though the locals stuff the dead girls' mouths with garlic and decapitate them. Elements of the Le Fanu story are reworked into the new scenario, although not always for the better (Hill's colleague and his daughter are not able to come to the castle because they are not allowed across the border whereas the daughter was the vampire's previous victim in the source story) and the film finds a different explanation for the "beautiful visitor" in Lara's bed as a child ultimately related to her current glum, self-cutting, alternative music-listening demeanor. The end result is a gorgeous-looking, visually stylish but empty picture which attempts to shoehorn in psychological and emotional resonance into an already-cluttered scenario - which has no idea what to do with Erika Marozsán's fetching tutor character - while trying simultaneously to be suggestive. Parts of the picture including the ending (minus the surprise reveal) recall THE EIGHTEENTH ANGEL - scripted by THE OMEN's David Seltzer - another modern horror film about a another western father and daughter encountering superstition and age old evil in the European countryside.