Love at first bite.

You may not be aware of this but the world at present is falling into two categories; those who know and those who are about to find out.  I’ll just print the word ‘Twilight’.  What follows is mostly for those who think it’s the time between day and night.

A few years ago an American writer, Stephanie Meyers, produced a series of books about vampires.  Not just any old cape wearing, hair meeting in pointy oil slick ‘v’ on forehead vampire.  These were a different calibre altogether, these were PMT’s : Pretty Moody Teenage vampires.   With issues.  Can you believe it?  As if acne and exams aren’t enough, dental and dietary problems take it to a whole new dimension.  The books were phenomenally successful.  But why stop a cash cow there?    Subsequently there has been ‘Twilight the Movie’ and recently ‘New Moon’ which went straight to the top of the box office.  TRW has it on good authority (well Grazia magazine) that the first film made $229 million.  That’s a lot of serious wonga. Vampires: who’d have thought.  However you don’t have to be Einstein to deconstruct some of its apparent mass appeal.  It’s  seriously a girl thing and we vote with our devotion but more importantly our money.

Any televisual adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ suffers because no matter who they choose to act the part he just never lives up to the Heathcliff of one’s imagination.  Maybe it’s something to do with the sublimely superior writing of Emily Bronte, but that hasn’t been the fate of the anti hero of the story, Edward Cullen.  He now has the very public face of the actor Robert Pattinson (for those who remember,  he played Cedric Diggory in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’).  He’s grown up a bit since then and has a whole new adoring fan base of young women proving once and for all that women don’t go for the steroid abuse look on the whole.

Why, I hear you asking, why TRW are you  interested?  After all there is more than something of the night connected with this lot.   Actually TRW would never have come across Moody Teenage vampires were it not for one of my work friends who is young enough to be my daughter and is really into the whole Twilight mother-lode.  She’s read all the books and seen the movies.  Vampires seem to thrive in people’s imagination where other things that go bump in the night don’t.  No one remembers this and I think only TRW and daughter’s boyfriend of the time saw it but in the late 90’s there was an excellent programme called ‘Ultraviolet’ about an agency that ‘disposed’ of modern day vampires.  Very underrated, should re-run and nothing to do with Jack Davenport being in it!

TRW thinks Ms. Meyers has been quite extraordinarily clever with the crafting of her books, focusing the action around teenagers. Teenagers go through such intense phases and the vampires in question seem to be a metaphor about identity, about wanting to be like everyone else, about wanting to fit in but inside feeling very different, isolated or lonely.  Teenagers believe themselves to be magnificently misunderstood and therefore it takes another outsider to know what it feels like; even if they are the undead.

There’s the  ‘do or die’ mentality.  Bella (heroine and human girlfriend of Edward which produces the tension at the heart of the matter) narrates her story saying after all of fifteen minutes she’s fallen in love with him ‘irrevocably.’  You long to clip her round the ear so she comes to her senses.  And let’s not forget you are dealing with  well,  immortality: no need to fear The Reaper.  TRW can barely remember actual details of teenage hood but can recall thinking that anyone in their twenties was ancient and the idea of growing old and infirm or actually dying really was unthinkable, literally.  If there’s ever a time one feels capable enough, energetic enough, positively fizzing with life enough to conquer the world or at least St. Leonards, it’s about eighteen.  After that reality sinks in along with your first wrinkle.

But Edward really will live forever as a seventeen year old, and a highly unsuitable one at that.  Just think how effective all those teenage health education ads would be if there was the slightest possibility they might end up on the menu.  It’s the ultimate hands off policy but still dangerously attractive.  Ah, it’s the old moth to a flame business isn’t it?  Forbidden fruit and all that.  It’s proving very hard for the heroine to get into context - after all, it’s irrevocable as far as she’s concerned.

Of course it might just be  about a skinny lad with a concave chest and pointy teeth, a pretty girl and an industry worth millions.  What do I know?

The movie (sky) was full of clunky dialogue and lots of earnest scowling.  But one line caught my interest.  Edward tries to put distance between them for her safety by telling her he is meant to look this good to draw her in.  Everything about him is designed to lull her into a false sense of security,  disguising his true nature and intent.  Great line.  It put TRW to thinking isn’t that what sin looks like?  The thing that separates us from God.   It’s designed to draw us in, we think we need to have it or can’t live without it, whatever it is. It looks great, or it looks harmless but it will hurt you in ways you can’t imagine.

Have you seen  the ‘Nosferatu’ film? A silent black and white vampire film that truly disquiets.  Without doubt the Nosferatu character is hideous to look at: you’d run a mile if you saw that coming at you talons first.  Maybe we should think of that next time we’re about to give in to temptation.  It’s not  so good-looking on the inside, it’s just disguised to fool you.

Good night.  And don’t have nightmares!