Attention Twilight girls

Hi girls! **waves excitedly**

Its a big day, right? YAY!

I know you all are totally pepped up, and I dont want to be a Debbie Downer again… but well… see, when I was your alls age, 12-ish, I was in love with a family of vampires too. The main dude wasnt Edward, though. His name was Lestat. Tall, blonde, violet eyes (or as Meyer would describe them, amethyst). He wasnt nice like Edward, but he was a badass, and I loved him for it (common, he was a rock star, who could resist??).

There was this other vampire in his family, Louis? I loved him too. So angsty. He was so pre-emo emo. Gorgeous and a sweetheart. *swoon* Yeah, he didnt really like eating people either. Like Edward, he went through a phase of only eating ‘bad’ people– murderers, villains and such. Ate animals for a while. Just sayin.

When I got a little older, we had this series called ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘. The movie was beyond stupid, but the TV show was great. I think it was before your alls time, but basically it was kinda about this vampire Angel, who was in love with a human girl, Buffy. Oh, and one of the main characters is a werewolf. Im just sayin.

Yeah, and then theres this other vampire book/movie series about another guy, named ‘Blade‘? Yeah, hes half vampire, half human. And then theres ‘Underworld‘– about a vampire whos in love with a werewolf, but their respective communities are sworn enemies. And this other one, Van Helsing? Um… yeah…

Im just sayin.

OH, and this other book series, by Christopher Golden… ‘Of Saints and Shadows’? Um, those vampires dont, like, ‘sparkle’, like Edward… but they can walk in sunlight, no prob. Also has a vampire-heroine romance.

So, um, I know Twilight girls are, um, vociferous about their support of the Twilight series… but you guys… um… Im trying to say this nicely…

There is nothing in the Twilight books thats new. There is nothing that wasnt done better before, by someone else. So if you liked Twilight (which is fine! Like I said, I liked it enough to want to see the movie!) please, for the love of god, try ‘Interview With the Vampire’? Try ‘Of Saints and Shadows’? Watch ‘Buffy‘ and ‘Angel‘? Theyre online for free at Hulu!!

You think youre in love with Edward?

There are better vampires out there

Comments

#1 Sili
November 21, 2008

Hey! I liked the original Buffy!

David Willis has been having fun with Twilight the last two days. The forum led me to an analysis of sorts.

It doesn’t matter whether there are better vampires out there (Bram Stoker, anyone?). Twilight are the vampires of this (sub)generation. Plenty of people scoffed at Anne Rice back in the day – before she grew all all fundie and “MAIN! Y CAN’T HAS!” with respect to fanfic.
#2 Eric
November 21, 2008

Vampires have changed a lot since Bram Stoker’s days. No longer are they hideous monsters, now they’re apparently sexy monsters whose lust can override their bloodlust.
#3 Eric Saveau
November 21, 2008

I would humbly suggest a little-known indie flick project called Pray For Daylight. Check it out here –

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5520243947172601129

and here -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3432819586728848049

The first video was shot as if it were an episode of a TV series, the second (effectively a sequel) is feature-length. With the second video you might be better off downloading than streaming, as it seems to be stretched vertically out of its intended widescreen format.
#4 Confused
November 21, 2008

Not having read it, I can’t comment, but most of what I’ve heard of Ann Rice is much the same as your reaction to Twilight.

*looks at previous posts*

Uhh, yeah, what #1 said.
#5 Jimmy
November 21, 2008

Screw all of your vampires. Blacula reigns supreme.
#6 sinned34
November 21, 2008

And here I was thinking that the Twilight Girls was some kind of crappy new pop band (not like there’s really any other type of pop band than “crappy”).

In my opinion, Emo vampires are more annoying than fast zombies. When it comes to fiction these days, anything that’s popular has been done better in the past at least twice.
#7 Ranson
November 21, 2008

Meh. Gimme the vamps from a Dresden Files book any day. Abilities varying on breed, some feeding on emotions, some on blood, all badass-but-still-can be-taken-down-by-our-hero.

Just don’t bring Anita Blake into the equation. I loved the books when they were about monster hunting. I stopped when it was 300 pages of sex, two of plot.
#8 Moopheus
November 21, 2008

Hey, you forgot Barnabas Collins.
#9 Pdiff
November 21, 2008

Moopheus @7 Hey, you forgot Barnabas Collins.

Yeah! Now you’re talking. True old school TV vamps!

Is Shadows available anywhere? Never seems to show up on the DVR…..

Pdiff
#10 Darek
November 21, 2008

Speaking of better vampires, I’m going to watch ‘Let the Right One In’ over the weekend, which I’m very excited about. It’s a Swedish movie, so you’ll have to torrent it or find some little art house theater to see it, but from what I hear it’s well worth checking out. See it now before the inevitable American remake starring Dakota Fanning and one of the High School Musical alums bastardizes it.
#11 Josh
November 21, 2008

Buffy/Spike 4evah!
#12 Eric Saveau
November 21, 2008

Pray For Daylight. An indie project. Google it. See what you think.
#13 Paul Lundgren
November 21, 2008

You know, Christopher Lee was playing better vampires that these kids before any of us was ever born. There’s an apocryphal story out there that Lee once got stopped in Hollywood by a traffic cop, who then asked Lee whether being out in broad daylight was a good idea.

And aren’t vampires supposed to be scary? Roger Ebert maybe said it best about Dracula: He used to be scary a long, long time ago.
#14 Edrei
November 21, 2008

Let’s see, even if we’re going for trashy vampire novels, Jean-Claude and Asher from the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series (before it became trashy erotica) and even the recent HBO’s adaptation of the Sookie Stackhouse series, the True Blood miniseries has Bill and Eric which totally beats up emo vampire trash.

The thing about it is that the vampires in these stories still retain that monstrosity despite trying to be human. The book still portrays them as monsters. Which if we look back at the original Bram Stoker’s Dracula was exactly what it is. Dracula was a monster and a sexual being.
#15 HP
November 21, 2008

You know, Christopher Lee was playing better vampires that these kids before any of us was ever born.

Ahem!

Surely you meant to say Max Shreck. Lee’s last vampire film was in 1972, which would make him basically contemporary with Jonathan Frid.
#16 Paul Lundgren
November 21, 2008

HP: I was born in 1970. Close enough.

Anyone seen the original Nosferatu lately?
#17 Ranson
November 21, 2008

Ah, I forgot about the Sookie books, although I very much do prefer the books to the show. I am a fan of Eric, and wish they’d play him up more in the series. He seems greatly under-utilized.
#18 Badger3k
November 22, 2008

I agree – the movie Buffy rocked. Hilarious schlock, not overdone-cliche writing that dragged on for too many years (or was that only his science fiction and comic book writing?). Barbara Hambly wrote two (Those who Hunt the Night was one, IIRC – James Asher) excellent books, and, of course, the Comte de St-Germain. The “vampire” from Blackness Rising (CS Friedman), and the spooky hopping vampires of Tsui Hark’s “Vampire Hunters” (ok, technically, Hopping Ghosts that might later turn into vampires), and even Eddie Murphy in “Vampire in Brookelynn”. Even “Love at First Bite” was enjoyable.
#19 Leni
November 22, 2008

Paul Lundgren- I am so badass I own Nosferatu on DVD!

Edrie wrote:

The True Blood miniseries has Bill and Eric which totally beats up emo vampire trash.

Bullpucky! Those two clowns are nothing but Kentucky fried emo vampire trash!

Bill spends annoying amounts of time fretting about Sookie’s shocking hemlines and Eric spends like 3 books whining about not getting laid by her. To add insult to injury, HBO hasn’t even made Eric the smart ass that he _started out to be_ in the books. They tried to make him “edgy” but he comes off like a lame-ass, vaguely Nordic bully whose head circumference is unnervingly smaller than that of his neck.

The whole series is like a Price-is-Right gala of supernatural beings that all seem to want the same thing: to fuck the living daylights (pun intended) out of the lovely Sookie Stackhouse.

But for those of us weened on the strange mix of black humor, silliness, and sweetness of Joss Whedon, it just sucks. I know Charlene, or whatever her name is, is trying to go there, but she’s just not going to get there.

That said, there are things I really like about the True Blood series. The premise is a good idea with a lot of fun social commentary potential. I like the pro-gay aspects of it, and I like how she respectful she can be of the Sookie character. There isn’t a lot of bullshit about the shamefulness of her sexuality, or about “hiding the forbidden love” from her family and friends and all that crap. She more or less wears it on her sleeve and expects that other people respect it, and I do really like that.

So I’ll give the HBO series a chance even though I think the books are more or less an agonizing exercise of wasted potential.

I haven’t read the Twilight series, and don’t expect I will, but so far all I’ve heard is that the little bitch gets suicidal when her dream boy breaks up with her. Which makes me just want to smack the author in the face with a copy of her own book. Lame.
#20 Sili
November 22, 2008

I just realised that your despair at girls reading trashy novels isn’t much different from people bitching at you for your apostrophobia.

As for HP I think the important issue here is that they’re reading. It may be crap, but they’re reading and that, as we know, is a habit that’s hard to kick. These kids have been started on a life of books. And that can’t be bad.

And quite a few of them will try their hand at writing. It’ll be crappy Mary-Sue fanfic, but many people start there (and some even get it published as we can see …).

But they’re writing and a exercising their imaginations, and that can’t be bad.

But just to get back to the hatin’. From Willis’ forum:

When I read it I was convinced Stephenie was convinced she was Bella and it was like it was a book that wasn?t supposed to be published. It was like reading her sexual fantasy, especially when she said it was based on a dream and it was like, ?Oh I?ve had this dream about this really sexy guy,? and she just writes this book about it. Like some things about Edward are so specific, I was just convinced, like, ?This woman is mad. She?s completely mad and she?s in love with her own fictional creation.? And sometimes you would feel uncomfortable reading this thing.
– Robert Pattinson, star of “Twilight”

To which Sephiroth144 replied:

Actor Robert Pattinson’s body was found this morning with multiple bite marks along his neck. An odd letter was found on his person, stating, and I’m quoting here, “I fucking told you so.”

news report from the near future.
#21 Matt Heath
November 22, 2008

The problem with movie Buffy is that the vampires can fly, can’t be hurt by a fall from a great height, aren’t obviously stupid and yet don’t ever try dive-bombing the slayer. Also no Willow.
#22 Stagyar zil Doggo
November 22, 2008

Paul Lundgren @15:

Anyone seen the original Nosferatu lately?

Not really, but I found E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire absolutely delicious.
#23 Kristjan Wager
November 22, 2008

Badger3k, you might want to check out Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula
#24 ERV
November 22, 2008

Im getting caught up on ‘True Blood‘ this weekend… Because we have a micro test on Tuesday and I have a paper due on Wednesday…
#25 Joe
November 22, 2008

Hmmm.

Replace Twilight in your article with Anne Rice, and then replace Buffy and Anne Rice with (say) Stoker and Hammer Horror films. Then imagine you reading such an article when you were 12, and what your reaction would have been (hint, you would have been pissed off at the condescension).

They are happily reading about their vampires, just like you were happily reading your vampires. Complaining that their vampires aren’t as good as your vampires misses the point (your vampires aren’t theirs).

As Sili says, just be happy they are reading (I can’t read Harry Potter, I think it is poorly written and badly plotted, yet I’m ecstatic that people are reading it).
#26 Mackenzie
November 22, 2008

Oh, the Vampire Chronicles. Those were fantastic. I should read The Vampire Armand. Memnoch was the last one I read. And yeah, Lestat as a rockstar, that was fun.

I liked Twilight though. Let the Right One In (mentioned above) was very good too. I noticed one bit of speech that was nearly identical in them though. “How old are you, really?” “17/14″ (depending on which movie) “How long have you been 17/14?” “A while.”
#27 Alan Kellogg
November 22, 2008

Sam “Grandpa Munster” Dracula. Yes, that Dracula. Now there was an original vampire. :sg:
#28 Ed Yong
November 23, 2008

This is unquestionably the best vampire series ever filmed. For the Americans here, this was a British cult hit so you probably won’t have seen it, and it’s only six episodes long which will infuriate and befuddle you.

But it’s awesome and has a lot of cool theatre actors in it. As well as one of the guys from the Wire. And Captain Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean.
#29 Stacy
November 23, 2008

The original Buffy was one of the best movies evah!!!

* Paul Reubens dying … LMAO *

( Disagreeing w/Abbie make me sad. )
#30 Stacy S.
November 23, 2008

As a matter of fact … Here it is. Tell me you are not laughing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dwZyDjO7Vo
#31 anevilmeme
November 24, 2008

Interesting how vampire storytelling changes as our culture changes.
#32 nate
November 24, 2008

What no Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LRIypcaIX4
Now that’s the ultimate vampire flick!
#33 Dawn
November 24, 2008

Ah…comments #8 & 9….Barnabus Collins…Drool. I was madly in love with him. I loved Dark Shadows but only watched it in secret as my mother didn’t approve. Haven’t seen any DVDs of it. It was on one of the cable networks for a while. (but Victoria Winters, as gorgeous as she was, was an idiot…)
#34 Charlie Foxtrot
November 25, 2008

Vampires?

Here’s *the* cult British vampire show of all time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VthsQVsXwEg
#35 Hydra
November 25, 2008

Underworld was great, but the sequel ran it into the ground (and eviscerated it with helicopter rotors).

But they at least those vampires were equipped with some common sense – they’re communal (and their stronghold is relatively well-defended), hierarchical, they do blood drives instead of just pouncing on some hobo, and they use guns. Vampires with guns = cool.

I must admit, I loved Lestat in Queen of the Damned. I treasure my copy of that movie (despite its abysmal metacritic score).
#36 Joshua Zelinsky
November 25, 2008

Apparently the right-wing thinks the movie is really about abstinence education: http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Twilight_The_Movie_A_Plea_For_Abstinence_29621.html
#37 Ranson
November 26, 2008

@ Joshua

It’s not just the right wing. I’ve read a number of other articles in far more liberal outlets that come to the same conclusion. From what little I know of the story and the author, I tend to agree. I’m not going to expose myself to this drivel on purpose to confirm or deny, though.
#38 Leni
November 26, 2008

LOL StacyS, I laughed.

Almost as funny:

Nicholas Cage having a Renfield moment in “The Vampire’s Kiss”

And this is a little long, ok maybe a lot long. But the part at ~8:51 where he yells “Vampire, you idiot. Nosferatu. Christ! The tortures of the damned!” is hilarious.
#39 Joshua Zelinsky
November 26, 2008

Ranson, interesting that it is getting that spin on the left also. There are two serious problems with the claim as I understand it: 1) It isn’t true in the original book that they stay chaste and 2) The plot explanation is that the vampire boyfriend won’t be able to control himself if he tries to have sex with her (which is frankly a pretty cliched claimed. It was used in one of the Dresden books for example). I haven’t seen the movie yet so I can’t comment in any more detail.
#40 Brian X
November 27, 2008

I was involved in a conversation last night on IRC where the snark about Twilight was quite a bit nastier than this — essentially that a) Edward is basically a freaky stalker whose target happens to fall for him and b) the author’s Mormonism renders the book harshly anti-feminist.

Personally, I was blindsided by Twilight‘s popularity and didn’t even really pay any attention to it until the last book in the series pulled Potterian numbers on its debut. As for Harry Potter itself, no, it’s not great literature, but it’s a long way from schlock as well. It’s certainly far more daring than an American author would write in this day and age.
#41 Ranson
December 1, 2008

I spoke with one of my sis-in-laws this weekend who devours mystic fiction with gusto. She said she picked up the first Twilight book to see what the hype was about. She finsihed it, said, “Surely this has to get better. Nothing this bad could be that popular.” She proceeded to say that about each of the subsequent books. Of course, she’s been saying that about the last nine or ten books by Laurell K. Hamilton, too, so I think it’s more a pattern of not learning from her mistakes.
#42 gabrielle
January 4, 2009

Lestat is my first and only love. Twilight makes me want to vomit. Anne Rice is a beautiful thing.
#43 simba
March 6, 2009

Speaking as a member of the Twilight generation: Buffy is amusing and takes the piss out of itself, despite having teenage angst. Even if it was as one-dimensional as Twilight it could get away with it for those reasons.Even most avid readers of Twilight agree that it’s vapid.

I never really liked Lestat- Sheridan Le Fanu writes good vampires, and Stoker’s short stories are good as well.