So pale, so TEEN.
Twilight
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Goldcrest Pictures, 2008
By Allana Mayer
Twilight. Yes, I went to see it. On opening night. Of my own volition, at full ticket price, knowing there was a high probability of having to tit-punch my way through a gaggle of snot-faced high-schoolers screaming, crying, clutching movie memorabilia and popcorn bags to their underdeveloped chests.
No, I’ve never read the books. I had never even heard of the damn series until two weeks ago. My interest wasn’t ironic – I was genuinely curious, though painfully skeptical. Nowadays, when everybody knows within minutes about everything that has ever happened, how could a book series with a Harry Potter-sized fanbase have passed by me, unnoticed, for so long? (I’ve never read the Harry Potter books, for the record.) But, I used to read Christopher Pike, so how bad could this be? And sometimes, when I’m in the right mood, throngs of screaming fans can be funny.
But I made one crucial error: choosing the midnight screening. I actually wanted the theatre to be swarmed, but of course all the teenyboppers had obeyed curfew and gotten home by eleven. So, the screening had maybe thirty people, only two of whom looked under twenty (and could, coincidentally, be identified as goths). The other people seemed like they had read the books despite its age rating, and were there to indulge a guilty pleasure. Disappointing, because it meant I had very little to distract me from the actual film.
Twilight is terrifying.
They each get their own shot in the prom scene.
It’s not that it was cheesily bad – it’s that it was so blatantly empty of anything approaching original content or form. The filmmakers’ equipment basically consisted of a cool-blue lens filter and a tonne of makeup – you’d swear the special effects consisted of vaseline on the lens.
The “chemistry” that drives the books, according to legions of fans, was translated for film by simply having a pretty young girl sit beside a pretty young boy. In what passes for “character development,” they essentially stare at each other heavily for two hours. At their first meeting, in which he glares at her in revulsion/fascination (which we later learn is due to his “hunger” – ew), the entire audience cracked up.
The few creepily passionate lines in a movie otherwise devoid of dialogue, are obviously culled straight from the book – lines no fan would allow the filmmakers to compromise on. The amount of pandering to diehards is apparent, and obviously came at the expense of any coherent whole for the uninitiated. Not that there’s much in the area of story to sacrifice.
The extravagantly affected slow-motion entrance of the vampire teens into the cafeteria, the quick shaky-cam cuts as our pretty girl character is surrounded by males in a parking lot, the visual acknowledgement of every character with a speaking role in the final prom scene (yes, of course it ends with prom) – all are brainless and by-the-book. The unjustified emotional displays (she throws her phone in a rage after her first day of school, which was fabulous in all respects but the aforementioned creepy boy encounter), and hokey montages (I get it! They talked all night!), not to mention the eight million “hey maybe a sequel is coming” moments, force me to conclude that director Catherine Hardwicke is a robot programmed with the syllabus of Hollywood Filmmaking 101. Twilight is a black hole of substance and style.
Twilight ultimately felt like it was made by a fanatic fifteen-year-old girl and that is exactly why I’m certain it’s destined to be a success.
As if Anne “Oooh I’m So Goth” Rice didn’t do enough to completely castrate the vampire mythos, we now have to contend with this fucking vacuous nonsense on top of it all. This is why things like “First Blood” are totally necessary right now. They help to remind people that vampires are supposed to be fucking monsters, not the pandering fuel for some 14 year old girl’s late night “alone time.”
Heh. I haven’t seen it, but I enjoy the cut of your jib.
I can’t believe the vampires “sparkle” in sunlight. What the hell is that?? Aren’t these supposed to be terrifying hunters of the night? And they’re SHINY??
Twilight definitely deserves a 5 out of 5 in my opinion