Wouldn't Want To Give Vampires A Bad Reputation

Forgive me, but I just don't get all the hoopla surrounding the teen vampire saga, "Twilight".

Vampires are not meant to be cool, pickup truck-driving, "vegetarians" from Washington state. They should be anything but that. At their best they should be like the vampire brood in "Lost Boys" or "John Carpenter's Vampyres". At their worst they should be all camped up in the style of George Hamilton in "Love at First Bite" or Lauren Hutton's "Once Bitten".

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of vampire mythology knows that sunlight will toast a vampire into a charcoal briquette. But, "Twilight" wants us to believe that the real reason vampires avoid sol de caliente is that it makes their skin shimmer and glow as if covered in diamonds. Give me a blood-sucking break...

Caskets filled with dirt from the motherland are out. Never sleeping is in.

Superman is no longer the only character who is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. "Look, up in the sky. It's a bird, It's a plane. It's . . . Edward?

Kiefer Sutherland and his disfunctional band of biker vampires hung out in an eclectically decorated cavern, and were cool and ruthless, swooping down from a pitch black sky onto their unsuspecting victims by night. On the other hand, Edward and his foster family of immortals live in a posh "fishbowl" with glass walls, play baseball during thunder storms, and prey on small defenseless animals.

When Edward's love interest, Bella, finally realizes the truth about her boyfriend, he orders her to "say it!" With a melodramatic gaze away from him, Bella takes a deep breath, pauses then says simply, "Vampire." If the story had been governed by the truth in advertising statutes Bella's correct response would have been "wimpire". I grew up on Dracula, Edward, and you are no vampire.

Yes, I understand that this is a love story . . . a story of forbidden, yet never ending love. It's a story of trust and lust and all the other elements that go into a best selling romance novel. I only hope that the tale of Edward and Bella steps it up in the next film. You wouldn't want to give vampires a bad reputation now would you?