This segment is a look back on the best, worst, and everything in between featuring one of the most revered creatures in film literature and myth. This segment will span every genre and era of film and will be put out in pieces because of the sheer amount of material.
As with all retrospectives, I'll try to keep the reviews relatively short.
Twilight
Let's begin with the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's masterpiece of forbidden romance: Twilight.
Our heroine, Bella Swan, is so brimming with personality that viewers have no choice but to relate to her as she adapts to life in a new town. She struggles to fit in at high school as people compliment her every move and fight over her affection. It really helps that actress Kristen Stewart really puts all of her range into this role, and you can absolutely tell why she won the MTV movie award for best actress.
Twilight could have easily stopped there and become an excellent teen drama about fitting in, but this only serves to introduce the real star: Edward Cullen. To quote the movie, "He's totally gorgeous. Obviously!" Harry Potter alum (well, not exactly an alum, he kind of dropped out or something a few days short of graduation) Robert Pattinson gives the performance of a lifetime showing the brooding inner torment of being a vampire. At first he subtly hides his feelings for Bela, knowing no girl would be interested in the rich, pretty, popular kid with a dark secret. And yet against all odds, they find love after two brief conversations and the revelation that they have a few things in common.
A short time later, she learns his dark secret and is naturally even more infatuated with him. At this point the movie takes a bold risk with vampire mythology. Instead of the tired cliche of vampires feeding on humans and burning in the sunlight, in this movie they're self-professed vegetarians and sparkle with the radiance of the sun. This cleverly deconstructs what viewers expect a vampire to be and adds unique twist to the lore. The deconstruction goes even deeper as Bela plays Baseball with Edward and his family, a brilliant allegory for the rich interconnection between vampiric lore and the American tradition.
Of course their forbidden love earns the ire of the evil vampires, who do absurd things like hunt down humans and drink their blood. An epic showdown occurs, and I don't think I need to tell you that it makes Equilibrium look tame. When a director has such movies as Red Riding Hood and The Nativity Story under her belt, it's obvious she knows a thing or two about action.
Long story short, you no longer have to watch vampires movies and wonder "How does this relate to teens like me in the 13-17 demographic?" And wasn't that the whole point of vampire mythology in the first place? I'd call this the Godfather of vampire movies, but The Godfather is so old and boring and totally didn't win any MTV movie awards, so it's obvious who wins that comparison.
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