Twilight Sucks

Yes, Twilight sucks. And yes, you may rage about it 'till you foam at the mouth. And yes, strapping yourself into a backpack full of TNT and blowing up your local movie theatre is excessive and Un-American.

We need to get some perspective here...

The reason Twilight sucks is the reason many facets of popular media suck- and that is because one of the most profitable demographic groups in terms of non-essential spending power is teenage girls. This is why there is a Hannah Montana, and a Justin Timberlake and a god knows what else; because there is a shrill, demanding and huge group of people, easily united by trend, and with a combined disposable income that rivals the gross annual income of some small countries.

And here is the problem; nobody understands teenage girls except for marketing executives and other teenage girls. This is a scientific fact that is so self-evidently factual and scientific that no scientist has ever bothered to write it down or even publicly acknowledge its existence.

This is why you don't understand the point of Twilight; because you are not a teenage girl. (Unless you are a teenage girl, in which case why are you reading this article? Don't you have some asinine and patronizing media creation to be discussing the merits of with your likewise ludicrous friends?)

I can haz time wasted?

As a person who is a fan of vampires, Twilight might seem to you like a pale, long fingered slap in the face. And that's perfectly natural. After all, Twilight's lead vampire Edward Cullen presents us with a neutered embodiment of the vampire, one with all the fun super powers, but none of the inhuman weaknesses that give the character depth and substance. He comes across exactly as what he is, the non-threatening imaginary friend of an emotionally retarded girl.

believe in the magic of... ah, forget it

Just try and remember that this buggering of your much-loved movie monster staple isn't personal. You are just caught in the gears of a huge money making machine that doesn't mean you any direct harm. Console yourself that for every Hannah Montana there is a Metallica, and that for every Justin Timberlake there is a Jason Statham, and that for every Twilight movie there are a plethora of other, better vampire movies, all of them gnashing their teeth and waving their fists in utter, utter indignation.

Here are a few...

This is a movie made about the making of a movie. Specifically, the movie Nostferatu. The interesting twist is that in this version of events, Max Schreck, the German actor who immortalised Count Orlok, actually is a vampire, offering his co-operation in making the film only if he is allowed to eat the lead actress, Greta Schroeder. Only the director, F.W Murnau, knows that Schreck is really a vampire, and manages to convince the rest of the film crew that he is merely an extremely dedicated method actor.

"He gained twenty pounds to play this role!"

And so Schreck spends the rest of the film freaking the hell out of everybody with his zany antics, which include eyeball fucking Greta with wanton abandon, and eating a live bat.

• VAMPIRE Vs. VAMPIRE: While Max Schreck is shown to have extraordinary strength, he doesn't really measure up to today's modern ninja vampire hybrid. However, if you saw Max Schreck walking down a dark alley, you'd likely piss your pants. If you saw Edward Cullen walking down an alleyway, you'd assume he'd blow you for crack money.
• DO THEY SPARKLE IN SUNLIGHT? In keeping with tradition, Max Schreck becomes engulfed in an inadequate special effect when exposed to sunlight.
• FEEDING HABITS: Because he is based on the original Count Orlok (who is in turn a poorly concealed plagiarism of Dracula), it's no surprise that Max Schrek adopts the go-for-the-jugular method of eating, because, cinematically, he invented it. However, it's the hunger and lust in Shreck's eyes that makes the feeding seem all the more terrible. He wears the look of a fat, horny man surrounded by sexy burritos.

There are certain expectations when you watch a film directed by Park Chan-Wook; such as uncomfortable sex scenes, unflinching violence and an almost resigned examination of the horrors and madness that lurk in the human heart. If you read that last sentence and said to yourself "surely some vampires could spice up those expectations" then you're absolutely right. It did.

disturbing, yet arousing

Thirst concerns the exploits of all-round nice guy priest, Sang-hyun, who volunteers for an experiment to find a vaccine to a fatal virus. He fails miserably and is infected, but is brought back from the brink of death after a blood transfusion. Though heralded as a miracle healer at first, Sang-hyun soon learns that the blood transfusion has turned him into a reluctant vampire. He suppresses his condition at first by feeding on the blood of coma patients and suicides, but eventually begins to succumb to darker temptations when he ends up nailing his friend's wife, Tae-ju, in a series of vaguely uncomfortable sex scenes. Thus begins the trolley-car ride of betrayal, murder, violence, madness and punching some guy straight in his goddamned neck.

If you look closely you can see the pain

The story ends when Sang-hyun drives Tae-ju (now also a vampire) into the middle of nowhere so that they might see one last, fatal sunset together.

Thirst makes a worthy attempt at showing us the logistic difficulty of being a vampire with a moral compass, without the need for teeth-grindingly adolescent soliloquies or moody, inexpresive silences.

• VAMPIRE Vs. VAMPIRE: The vampires of Twilight, like many other vampires, tend to engage in a lot of hissing and posturing in times of confrontation. The vampires in Thirst will just punch you straight in the goddamned neck.
• DO THEY SPARKLE IN SUNLIGHT?: No. They slowly and painfully chargrill from flesh to bone while contemplating the monsters they have become with a quiet nobility.
• FEEDING HABITS: Unlike most vampires, the ones in Thirst do not have fangs, which means they have to either cut a hole in someone or tap them like a keg with an IV tube. Strangely, this is all more disturbing than actual fangs.

When you first start watching this movie you may be forgiven for thinking it is going to be about a terrifying albino boy. You will be mostly wrong in that the boy turns out to be less than terrifying and not really an albino. Let The Right One In is about a troubled young boy called Oskar who makes friends with a twelve year old girl called Eli. Except Eli only looks like a twelve-year-old girl. She's actually a centuries old monster who survives on blood. Oh yeah, and she obtains this blood from her creepy paedophile guardian Hakan, who goes out and randomly murders people for it, stringing them up and bleeding them like livestock.

Takeout

• VAMPIRE Vs. VAMPIRE: In one of the penultimate scenes, where Eli violently dispatches of some bullies quicker than it takes to eat a handful of popcorn, we learn she is a quick, lethal neck-snapping killer. True, this is par for the course with many vampires, but seeing it done by a twelve-year-old girl brings it to whole new levels of badassery. Also, it's worth pointing out that while Eli is shown to have no vagina, we're fairly certain that Edward Cullen has nothing but vagina.
• DO THEY SPARKLE IN SUNLIGHT? No. They erupt into a geyser of flame that sets the entire room on fire.
• FEEDING HABITS: Eli sticks to the traditional 'bite their neck' school of people eating, though originality points should be offered for getting a pervy older man to do your dirty work for you.

• VAMPIRE Vs. VAMPIRE: The vampires from Dusk 'Till Dawn play rock music on instruments made out of human body parts. The vampires from Twilight play with the emotions of a teenage girl. There really is little contest.
• DO THEY SPARKLE IN SUNLIGHT? Nope. They explode.
• FEEDING HABITS: In Dusk 'Till Dawn the vampires eat their victims like you and I might eat a juicy hamburger. You know, if the hamburger were screaming and thrashing about a lot.

• VAMPIRE Vs. VAMPIRE: Martin most assuredly doesn't have any super-natural powers. Unless drugging women and taking advantage of them is a super-natural power. Cracked's lawyers inform me that this is definitely not the case. Martin may be the only vampire on this list that would lose in a fight to Edward Cullen, and that's because he's not even a fucking vampire.
• DO THEY SPARKLE IN SUNLIGHT? Martin may burn and peel slightly if left too long in strong sunlight, but otherwise there is no lethal effect. We at Cracked refuse to accept 'wait for him to get skin cancer' as an acceptable method of vampire disposal.
• FEEDING HABITS: Lacking any vampiric advantages whatsoever, Martin relies on a syringe full of narcotics and a razor blade to get his fix. Just like the rest of us.