Sparkly Vampires Suck
Twilight is a dreadful movie, but at least it can’t possibly be considered a horror movie. Thankfully, it is a stain on someone elses genre.
I finally screwed up the nerve to watch this abomination, and I’m glad I did. I don’t think I can bring myself to endure the books, however, since I was half-drunk when I watched the movie. My friends and I had great time laughing at the supermodel-style acting, ridiculous dialog, nonsensical plot, and general lack of anything worth investing in emotionally. But sitting around sober by myself and trying to absorb the source material might be asking too much.
Twilight features the lamest vampires ever committed to the screen. When exposed to sunlight, their skin doesn’t blister and smoke, they just twinkle. How terrifying. In the middle of the movie, the nice vampire family takes an outing to the woods to play baseball. Obviously the curse of life after death and the compulsion to drink innocent blood is haunting them ceaselessly. The bad vampire who tries to kill the heroine expresses his fathomless evil by…cocking his head to one side.
There isn’t one scary or horrific moment in Twilight, unless you are revolted by self-indulgent teenage angst. I suppose that is OK, since the point of Twilight is to stir up the hormones of 14 year girls rather than creating suspense using psychological conflict and exploiting fear. But aiming that low is hardly admirable.
Numerous writers have decried the complete lack of sex in Twilight. Some have said it’s about not having sex. Personally, I’d prefer to see the sex taken out of vampire stories altogether (it’s all been done before), just so long as all the Horror, gore, and damnation remain. But whether you are a pro-vampire sex or anti-vampire sex advocate, you’d have to agree with me that taking out all the elements that are ripe for drama and conflict in the vampire character and merely replacing them with mild angst is not a recipe for compelling entertainment.
I should probably make a rule for myself that I won’t review bad movies on The Morbid Imagination, but this particular sparkly turd has been such a cultural phenomena that I felt compelled to unleash my bile on it. I expected it to suck and it surpassed my expectations in it’s wretchedness. But since I am trying to promote the notion with this blog that Horror movies should be smart and emotionally complex and daring, everything that Twilight isn’t, I had to take note of it.
So if another film comes along that fits that bill, I’ll review it here. When does New Moon come out?
Tags: Twilight, vampire
