Vampires have been on my mind lately. Last week I gave myself the unparalleled luxury of taking in an early-evening screening of Twilight, the teen vamp movie based on Stephenie Mayer’s best-selling novel. The movie had all the elements of a great teen movie – major love interest and then major obstacle to that love (turns out Edward is a vampire and Bella is an irresistible-smelling human).
Broody broody
I love teen movies – the high school setting, the high drama of piffling problems, the general open warfare. But aside from this being a really good teen movie, it reminded me of how much I love vampire stories and how long it’s been since I’ve seen a really good vampire film.
As a child, I read Salem’s Lot, a bit too young if I’m honest, and I think it did lasting damage to my psyche. I know I did lasting damage to my bed (stop that!), having to take an enormous long jump from the light switch by my bedroom door to my bed most nights so no lurking vamps could drag me under the bed once I had hit the lights.
I still love The Lost Boys to this day and regularly say ‘you’re eating WORMS, Michael’ to people who don’t seem to have the same set of pop culture reference points as me. Hmm. I even bought it on DVD recently to go in my ever-expanding ‘to-watch-on-rainy-solo-Saturday afternoons’ pile .
Sookie and Bill do some more intense staring into each others' eyes
Having had my vampire interest piqued by Twilight, I was delighted to stumble across True Blood, a new television series by Six Feet Under writer and director Alan Ball, which also takes vampires as its subject. I’ve been watching this ever since and think it is just fantastic, or should I say fang-tastic (mwahwahhaha!).
In the show, vampires have come out of the closet and are now living in the open, some trying to integrate with mainstream society, others keeping their own company at vampire-only bars like ‘Fang-tasia.’ Anna Paquin stars as Sookie, the telepathic waitress and she just took home the golden globe the other night for best actress in a television series. It’s true, she’s great in it. What do you expect from the girl who won an oscar as a child? Anyway, there’s a nice ‘will they-won’t they-or-even-can they?’ love story going on between Paquin’s character and local vamp, Bill Compton. It’s pretty steamy.
Why are vampire love stories so H-O-T?
Or is that just me again?
There are a few steamy ‘love-that-can-never-be’ moments in Twilight too. ‘You’re impossibly fast…and strong,’ says Bella. Be still my heart!
Just remember though: ‘Vampires think about one thing, one thing only…drinking blood.’
p.s. As for questions regarding the recent whereabouts of Leigh and I, all I can say is we fell facedown into a Youtube feeding frenzy of Summer Heights High and True Blood. We’re sorry.
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Hee, I was going to post about the vampire phenomenon too! I love vampire shite, but alas I was very disappointed in both Twilight (which I thought I would love, being a fan of teen trash and vampire nonsense) and True Blood, which I actually just watched at the weekend, coincidentally enough (a friend burned me a DVD with the entire first series, and I’ve watched about two thirds of it now).
I thought the Twilight books (I made it through the first one and about half of the second before I gave up) were almost unreadable, but what’s worse than the leaden prose is Bella’s complete lack of personality apart from being clumsy (ooh, how quirky) and loving Edward, aka Sparkle Motion. Even as a teenager, which is when I was the prime target for this sort of shite (having, as I did, a huge thing for pale, brooding, annoying tormented boys), I would have found Bella too boring to read about. Also, Edward is a creepy stalker – he’s not romantic at all! The gender stuff in Twilight is really depressing – it’s like the anti-Buffy. Lucy Mangan wrote a great piece about this in the Guardian a while ago, which basically sums up my feelings on the matter. I actually recently read another trashy teen vampire series, The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith, which was everything Twilight should have been – really entertaining, full of tormented vampire goodness, and, surprisingly, genuinely creepy and cool at times. Strongly recommended!
As for True Blood, I just don’t think it works – it’s a HUGE waste of what could be such a cool scenario: you could do so much with the whole vamps coming out of the coffin thing. It’s like Alan Ball has never read or watched anything to do with vampires, and so isn’t aware of all the clichés. So much of it was unintentionally hilarious – the bit where Sookie turns up at Bill’s house and everyone starts, like, growling at her and sticking their tongues out? It’s like a piss take of The Lost Boys (a truly awesome, and just-camp-enough, vampire film)! And as for the gothtastic vampire bar… and Bill’s habit of looming up behind people (as my husband said, “just because you CAN do that, doesn’t mean you SHOULD”), or just standing there broodily… dear oh dear. Me and the aforementioned husband spent more time laughing at it than I suspect the makers would like. And we’re kind of the target market, being people who don’t automatically dismiss genre stuff as being silly. If there was a really good vampire drama, we’d be watching it – except of course, there already was, and it was Buffy, and it was bloody brilliant. And at least Angel got to do the broody tormented routine AND parody it too (also, he got turned into a muppet!!). Now Buffy and Angel – that is a hot vampire love story. Sigh.
If True Blood was totally campy, it would be grand, but I kind of get the feeling that Alan Ball actually thinks this is all really cool and sexy. He should be forced to watch that brilliant episode of Buffy with all the wannabe vampires in their crappy goth club, which takes the piss perfectly out of the whole sexy vampire thing…
Oh no! Really?
I’m a sucker (ahem) for all kinds of brooding and swooning so perhaps this is why I liked both so much. I found Twilight quite cliched too but still really enjoyed it. I think there’s some great writing in True Blood and don’t think any of the cliched vampire-related stuff is enough to make it bad. It’s not The Wire, like, but I’m still really enjoying it.
Must check out the Vampire Diaries.
You’re totally right about the writing in TB – I really like it when it’s all Southern Gothic. I just don’t think Ball gets the vampire stuff right, which is a shame. I want to like it, but I don’t know if I’ll make it to the end of the series!
And you should definitely check out the Vampire Diaries. I got them all out of the library because I am trying to be thrifty (and also trying to avoid adding to the house’s permanent book mountain) but I had to call them on interlibrary loan and I have to admit I was pretty embarrassed when each one came in. The (very nice) librarian was looking at me like “you bothered to call in this“? But anyway, they are totally addictive and they get the whole “I am so pale and handsome and outsiderish and also so dangerous” vampire thing perfectly – I would have loved them when I was 15.
I thought much of True Blood was uneven, and I hated Sookie’s shitty accent, but there was a smouldering intensity to Bill that I liked and honestly, the season finale was wonderfully intense.
Sookie had a great line when she says “it’s funny, but your thoughts don’t have an accent.”
Loved the whole episode.
And Lafayette is the new Omar.
Glad to hear the finale is worth sticking around for. And Medbh, much as I have Omar up there on a very high pedestal, I think you’re right. I haven’t liked a character as much as Lafayette in aaaaaages.
I love True Blood a think it is a fantastic show. Stephen Moyer’s protrayal of vampire bill is sheer genius. His ability to portray so many emotions with the slightest change with eyes is extrodinary.
love teen movies too…twilight was good but didn’t take too kirsten stewart! came across too cold.
Redfirewood, you’re right Bill does have very expressive eyes
…but what about the main vampire guy, Eric? Phwoar!
Fashionfilosofy, I think that might have had something to do with what Penny was saying about the character of Bella being so passive. Although, she did a photo shoot in Teen Vogue (don’t ask) and looked a bit sans-charisma there too. Ho-hum.
I do sense a teen movies post coming on though. Sigh – Mean Girls.
BTW Medbh I just finished the season last weekend and I got a tingle when she said that line about the accent. I was shouting at the telly
. I went and ordered the box set of the Sookie Stackhouse novels too, to tide me over until season too…Summer ’09! On the other hand, Lost is back this Sunday. Am I the only one still watching it?
Hi Honoria,
Have missed both Twilight AND True Blood, where is TB on?
And no, you’re not alone on Lost. It’s like a bloody Albatross around my neck. I’ve put in so many hours watching it to date that I feel I can’t give up on it now. It better be good…
Sinead, this is actually how I feel about it now too. I swore every episode in Series 3 that I was going to give up but the sense of investment is too great just to quit. At least series 4 was better. Double episode on Sky 1 on Sunday. TB is a HBO thing…not on d’telly here yet but there are ways, sayin’?
Also look out for the Swedish vampire movie, Let The Right One In (http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=ICp4g9p_rgo) – I think it’s playing during the Dublin Film Festival next month
yeah saw the teen vogue shoots both of them. still has that vacant stare….
Twilight is proof that you need to be an indifferent mysterious asshole at first, to get the girl attracted, then she can invent whatever great qualities she wants in you after the fact and all is well. Women are masters of backwards rationalisation. It’s so ridiculous. Guy wants to eat girl, guy seems completely repulsed by girl at first, which intrigues her. Why oh why is he repulsed? Why doesn’t he want me? I’ll show him… as against Mike the nice guy who does everything for her.
It’s a feminine fantasy:
1. Mysterious alpha male.
2. Rich, high status family – father a doctor.
3. Very attractive guy.
4. Girl has few qualities. Bella DOES NOTHING in the movie to justify his attraction, like most women, she just exists and things just happen TO her. Women prefer this, they want to be led and seduced, they don’t want to contribute at all.
5. Edward is extremely preselected – Jessica shows all the girls want him.
6. Bella gets to push away nice guy losers, women secretly like this.
It’s fascinating that a feminist would like a movie where the female character contribute so little to anything.
Here is a good discussion of Twilight’s sexual dynamics, and why it’s such a female fantasy.
http://whiskeys-place.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-scary-vampires.html
much appreciated for such a cool post. I am in love with the Vampire Diaries to bits, wonderful to see that there are people out there the same