Rarely have I seen a movie adaptation of a classic horror short story that isn't gratuitous or cheesy.  Morella is a movie adapted from Edgar Allen Poe's short story of the same title.  The movie is set in an obscure future which is advanced enough to allow significant genetic experimentation of the human genotype, but not so far in the future that it takes forever for the audience to get caught up on the terminology and history.

The story the movie portrays is a marvelous blending of Poe's original in this new setting.  Morella (Angela Jones) is a fertility expert suffering from an advanced form of MS who is trying to clone herself.  She is successful and a fellow scientist cum lover's wife is impregnated with the clone.  The scientist raises 'his' daughter and slowly realizes she is a souless creature.  Eventually, through investigation at the lab and watching his daughter with her infatuation with him, he realizes she is Morella's clone.

Morella is incredibly stylish.  The sets are minimalist and clean looking, creating a disturbing feeling.  The music conveys the eerieness of Poe.  The voice overs tended to be a bit overdramatic trying to sound too much like Poe.  This fact put me off slighlty.  But the folding in of more dark elements overcame this downside.

Morella explores the Lillith myth, the self perpetuating woman who doesn't need men.   She is the ultimate succubus, souless, thus never dying and never being damned for her actions.  Morella kills without conscience and all through the movie proves she excels above and beyond the standard.  For those of us who are philosophically inclined, we are reminded of the statement that the reason there are no women Mozarts is because there are no women mass murderers.  Morella is not a mass murderer, but it is one of the few movies that is willing to allow the 'evil' not be caused by the woman, but to be the woman.  The standard horror fare would have the woman accidentally cause disaster and the man come in and fix it.  In Morella, the woman is truly modeled after Lilith, not Eve.  She exists beyond good and evil.  And in the end, no man is able to prevent her from following her destiny.