Twilight turns 10 years old on November 21st. While that doesn’t quite fit the mold of the Horror History Series, the Saga has been on my brain recently. What Bella Swan does to introduce young women to the world of the supernatural/horror is fascinating. We’ve had years of people decrying what happens here or going out of their way to make video defenses of the approach. Honestly, I have to take my ground on the battle. The Stephanie Meyer novels are trash. However, Catherine Hardwicke laid the ground work for an amazing film series.
Did I just call Twilight amazing? Hell, did I just use amazing after Stephen King had that twitter tirade about the word? The answer to both is Yes. Every generation changes up what works for monsters. These damn kids think that vampires glitter in the sunlight, werewolves are Native American styled tribes and zombies can run. Zombies don’t run, people!
What kills me about this series is the split between what makes a vampire. Parts of the dialogue in this first film declare that the Cullen family are genetic offshoots of humanity. They resemble vampire, feast like vampires, but they have the control of mutants. Oh wait, we got distracted away from talking about Bella Swan? Well, she’s a latch-key that moved to Forks, Washington with her divorced cop dad. He’s busy investigating strange happenings, while Bella is left to befriend Anna Kendrick and make goofy eyes at the 108 year old man pretending to be 17.
Imagine the mental gymnastics that a 108 year old has to commit to believe it’s acceptable to keep hanging around with underage girls. Half of the film is getting Edward and Bella together, while very little people protest. No one pays attention to Bella, so she begins her quest for an identity by co-opting what makes the Cullen family special. Wow! I thought I was onto something by seriously looking at the creepy vibes that Laurie Strode put out. What is it about female driven lead heroines being totally devoid of an identity?
That’s right, my little snowflakes. Source novel came from a female author. The film was written by the wonderful Melissa Rosenberg and directed by the underrated Catherine Hardwicke. That’s more X chromosomes under the hood than 95% of what’s playing at the multiplex. Do we blame Kristen Stewart? Oh, you mean the talented actress that Claire Denis directed to being the first American winner of a Cesar? The rest of the cast is made of character actors and genre heavyweights. So, what is the takeaway?
Twilight begins the fan-favorite Saga by purposefully being vague. Most fantasy power plays work for the same reasons why RPGs let you customize the main character. These fictions are meant for you to project upon their leads. For all the boys out there that couldn’t hang with it, well you never were meant to do that. Well, unless you’re a big fan of a feature film escort mission to keep a pretty fleshy one from getting murdered in the Pacific Northwest. Oh well, there is where I end now.
After all, things are just going to get weirder the deeper we go. In terms of the 4K presentation, Lionsgate/Summit kills it again. The transfer looks better than many prints I’ve seen and the Atmos track makes the Edward vampiric stunts come to life. The clear-cut channel definition makes eager to see the larger fights that come later in the series. All of the special features are ported over from the Blu/DVD. None of them seem to have been upgraded to 4K, but no big loss. Give it a shot.
