this Twilight movie made me do it.....

I'm doing my best to stay tongue-tied here. But Francis Ford Coppola's great, overlooked Dracula was on the tube a couple nights ago, and I couldn't help but get a bit riled up. Now, there's a vampire love story handled properly; in other words, R-rated, gory, and uncompromising.

I get it, I really do: Twilight is teen fantasies come to life, something for females of all ages to watch and dream of a world where their high-school-aged-self was swept feet-off-hallway-floor by an Emo-looking undead heartthrob. The scares are nowhere, the vampire mythology is kept partially-intact to merely the most basic degrees, and theaters will overflow with screaming, laughing, swooning, and moaning women that drown out the sure-to-be-telegraphed-dialogue. Simple mathematics. Get it, got it. Not exactly what Bram Stoker intended, but serves a purpose.

It's like Soulja Boy---there's an audience for it, unfortunately, so I just have to accept it, even though it desecrates lore and craft that I cherish; In this case, the goodness of classic vampires. Though, I'd watch a week-long marathon of Twilight while tied to a chair underneath a steady drip of water splashing atop my forehead while Megan Fox stood in front of me in a string bikini taunting "You'll never get this, I'm David Silver's sex-toy," rather than listen to one Soulja Boy song, but that's beside the point.

Will I see Twilight? Here's the ironic kicker: I'm planning on it. But I'll wait and catch an afterwork, non-weekend screening once the Beatle mania subsides. Just to see for myself before I continue to plow stakes through its romantic heart. I hate people who condemn films they've never even seen, so I can't be that guy. But shit, doesn't it just seem like little more than a more-anticipated, better-casted spin on dreck like Blood & Chocolate? You know it does. All in the same mediocre gang.

But yes, Twilight has made me do this, for the sake of vampires everywhere, of every age, that un-live for nothing more than to drink blood and fuck shit up. No time for pillow-biting, heart-breaking, or compassion. Like the comic giant himself Steve Niles told me when I interviewed for him for the 30 Days of Night film adaptation: "Our vampires treat humans like beer cans: pop open their tops, drink their blood, and toss them into the garbage." Now that's something to swoon over.

And on that fitting note, I present a Youtube-assisted collection of favorite vampire movie moments. All great, all ten times cooler than any second of Twilight. Hi haters!

1) from 30 Days of Night, when Marlow and his Goth-heads-gone-wild crew really start bringing the pain:


2) trailer for 1922's untouchable Nosferatu, a flick which gave me night-terrors throughout my bed-wetting years; I wanted the rising-from-coffin bit, but Youtube failed me; still, it's the grandaddy:


3) Near Dark, quite possibly the "coolest" movie of this kind, ever, though the blood-lovers here are never actually called "vampires," but that's clearly what they are; skip to the 3-minute mark for the goods:


4) 1931's Dracula, my first exposure to the neverending arsenal of vamps that Vlad the Impaler hath wrought; like Nosferatu, this one's a mere trailer....fuckin' Youtube:


5) A movie that awards anybody who's also seen and loved it a shitload of cool points = The Monster Squad; here's the opening, which is pure Transylvanian macabre:


Now, tell me, Twilight faithful....would Edward Cullen, James, or which ever other Tiger Beat pin-ups stand a chance versus these creatures of the night?

Does it really matter at the end of the day? Of course not. Twilight is going to pull in Harry Potter dollars, and we'll get even more PG-13 vampires. I lose, you win.

For the record, though, I fucking love True Blood. Go figure, eh?