Bite Me: Staring Through Windows At Teenage Vampires

As many of you will have doubtless noticed, the crazy worlds of TV, film and literature are awash with tales of teen vampires. What with the Twilight Saga, the Vampire Diaries and various other pointy-toothed, chastity- (or otherwise in the case of the latter)fests flooding the shelves and screens. In Let the Right One In, last year had a terrific genre-redefining vampire movie, sadly most of the bajillion dollar tales of whiny adolescents and their obsessions with the creatures of legend garnered all the attention.

So, just over a year late I saw Twilight on the recommendation that it would be one of the most unintentionally hilarious films that I'd ever seen. I have to say, I was impressed. It was much tackier and cliched that I'd anticipated. There are more genuine belly-laughs in it than in your average Judd Apatow film and that's just at the writing and performances, before we've even examined the plot and concept. Many of you will have already seen it but I'm going to wade in with my trademark clumsy, flailing arms of cynicism.

The opening is a classic 'deer drinking from a pool' scene, fair enough, every vampire film should have one but it's not the most inspiring you'll ever see and it's not exactly the tapir from Apocalypto (probably for the best really). Now we get onto the most important part of the film, the characters (because plot is for losers in teen cinema). From what I could discern the story follows Mary Sue, a teenager who goes to live with her father in rainy Washington. There follows several, pointy-chinned, jerky exchanges with other annoying teenagers including the nerdy asian, the token black guy and the fashion-obsessed blonde (hasn't civil rights come a long way in the last few years...? Seriously, I can't believe stereotypes like this are still allowed), but most importantly with pale, strange-eyed Cedric Diggory. Now, at first Cedric can't bear to be in the same room as our Mary Sue (this is important to the characterisation, as is explained, at length, later in the film) but eventually old pallid-chops comes round and the two bond over a science lesson in one of many 'teenage' conversations. Now, these 'teenage' conversations mostly consist of awkward sighing and scoffing noises with the occasional gormless look thrown in. Kristen Stewart, who plays our bold Mary Sue, is very much from the Ben Affleck and Nicholas Cage school of acting (would love to see and Inside the Actor's Studio with the three of them, all chins and gormlessness. Well guarded secret that the key to acting is in the chin).

We also meet Mary Sue's friend, Rafael Nadal, who is from the Quileute tribe. Oh, right, the Quileute tribe, you say? Must be one of those famous werewolf tribes that I've heard so much about... She warns him that the werewolf tribe has legends about the cold-ones (vampires). Mary Sue then duly Googles this, because that's what young people in films do these days (that has to be one of my movie pet-hates, people Googling things, it's just not necessary). Then more stuff happens and for plot contrivance reasons Mary Sue is about to be hit by an A-Team van, driven by the token black guy (because obviously he would be the one who'd clumsily near run her over - did Martin Luther King Jr. die in vain?) but fortunately Cedric swoops to the rescue with superhuman speed and strength- wonder what that could mean? Anyhow, Mary Sue is taken to hospital where she's examined by Coop from Nurse Jackie, who's blonde and pale for some reason and when I say pale, I mean really pale, like Cedric pale (wonder where that's going?)- in fact so pale that I wouldn't trust him to examine and evaluate my health without insisting that he spent a few hours outside to get some vitamin D. But wait- pale, knows Cedric... oh my sweet lord, it's Dr. Acula!

Well, Mary Sue's fine and the token black guy's a little shaken up. Mary Sue then dreams about Cedric and then they go to the forest and... oh Christ, this bit was rather drawn out and depressing. "Ask me the most basic question," Cedric says- there's a pregnant pause. "What do I eat?" He adds for clarification. Ok, firstly, it can't be the most basic question if you have to tell Mary Sue what the most basic question is and secondly, the most basic question would be "What the fuck are you?" (but worded in a more tween-friendly way). Essentially, Cedric's a vampire. No shit, Sherlock. Then, after 33 tedious minutes of relentless teenage awkwardness, a sliver of plot slips through the net. Some more vampires kill a man on a boat or something. Then after that brief slip-up we're back to yet more weird Mary Sue/Cedric conversation and even more of Cedric driving his Volvo. Yup, you heard that right, Volvo. Cedric, a vampire so impossibly attractive, enigmatic and powerful that his car of choice is naturally a Volvo. From here-on in, the film becomes a massive bleedin' Volvo advert.

For reasons that can only be described as lack of decent ideas, Mary Sue is off to play baseball with Cedric and his family (Coop/Dr. Acula, Coop's wife, Chunky Jock Vampire, Kooky Cassandra (premonitions, I mean) Vampire, Twisty Smile Vampire, Plastic Vampire) in a thunderstorm- they have to wait for storms to play, you see. One of them hits the ball with a loud crack. "I can see why you have to wait for storms!" Says Mary Sue. I can't, they're in the middle of fucking nowhere anyway. Evil vampires turn up and ruin their fun, one of them notices Mary Sue and decides to hunt her down (despite having the pick of all of the other humans in Forks, who aren't protected by vampires - apparently she smells nice or something).

Oh no, Mary Sue's in trouble, let's go to Arizona. Oh no, the vampire's still chasing us. Oh no, the vampire's got Mary Sue's mother and wants to meet Mary Sue alone. Oh no, Mary Sue's gone alone and the mother isn't there (surprise, suprise). Oh no, Mary Sue's being slapped around by the vampire. Oh no, he's bitten her on the wrist. Cedric's here to save the day, but, oh no, he's losing the fight and being slapped around. Coop's here with Chunky Jock Vampire and Twisty Smile Vampire to save the day properly. Oh look, Kooky Cassandra Vampire has torn off the evil vampire's head in a single twist, not so tough now, eh Cedric, you got beaten up by him but she just tore off his bloody head with her bare hands. Oh no, Mary Sue's still dying, quickly, Cedric, suck on her wrist, but not too much or you'll kill her. Oh no, Cedric, you're killing her. Oh no, Coop, why the fuck aren't you stopping him?

Mary Sue's in hospital. "You fell down two flights of stairs and went through a window" explains the mother (because naturally that's entirely fucking plausible). Cedric's there though, everything's fine. Fade to blac... hang on, what do you mean there's more, the fucking plot's literally just finished, you can't possibly need more bloody character nonsense. Oh, it's prom time, unenthusiastic hoorays all round. Rafael Nadal is having a heart to heart with Mary Sue before Cedric turns up and goes "The fuck are you talking to her, Rafa?" (not verbatim) and they go to the prom. Then there's some dancing and a Dawson's Creek credits sequence.

The two heroes of the film? The Volvo and Mary Sue's Dad, who just tried to be a good person and was ignored and accused of being fat by his daughter.

Wow, what a phenom we've created. You know who I feel sorry for? Darren Shan, he was writing interesting teen vampire novels way back before this idea came to Stephanie Meyer in a dream (because obviously it has to come in dream form to a prophet, not everyone can have the idea of 'get this, right? Vampires, but teenagers') and all he got was a shitty Hollywood re-imagining of his first book. He deserved better.