Twilight: Middle Age Women And Tween Girls Unite Over Quasi-Vampire Porn!

I don't want to stereotype anyone, so I will choose my words carefully. I won't say that all teenage girls are very impressionable and can easily get sucked into any trend that comes along, but I will say that most teenage girls are very impressionable and can easily get sucked into any trend that comes along.

When I was in junior high, witches were all the rage. Surely this had to do with the cultural phenomenon that was The Craft. A few years later, Hot Topic was all the rage and with that came the obsessions with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Soon after, wizards were teh sexy when this Harry Potter fella came along. Sadly, Ian McKellan wasn't able to parlay his status as Gandalf the Wizard into getting any hot pieces of ass. You know, aside from the 3 foot tall hairy-footed whiners he was always hanging out with. And guess what? Hobbits were the objects of desire soon after.

After hobbits it was pirates that were in fashion when Johnny Depp came around as the second coming of Keith Richards. Then ninjas were all the rage. Even zombies have had a bit of a resurgence over the last few years.

But put all the hype from those trends together, and it still doesn't come close to the living, breathing entity that is...(shhhhh)...Twilight.

I don't know much about Twilight. But that doesn't stop my local theater and every commercial break from telling me that I need it. Commercials on Monday Night Football tell me I want to see Twilight in theaters this Friday. The local Barnes and Noble tells me to screw Twilight and head on over there for four (4!) angsty emo-vampire filled tomes that I can enjoy over and over until the words on the pages fade into nothingness from my constant perusal. Even my oldest and wisest friend Best Buy lets me know that if I don't buy multiple copies of the Twilight soundtrack (one for me to listen to, one to keep in sealed mint condish, and one to give to my BFF), I am a complete and epic fail to all of my tween friends.

So what the hell is Twilight anyway? And why is it for me?

A quick look at the movie's homepage and a glance through Wikipedia lets me know what I need to know.

Funktastic Synopsis: Meet Bella Swan, the stereotypical outcast living in Phoenix, AZ

Notice the dark tone of the picture, along with the multiple rings, strange bracelet and heavy eye makeup. Especially notice the scowl. These are all non-verbal signs that this girl is indeed an outcast, but underneath is a gentile and caring girl, just waiting for the right vampire boy to bring out the best in her.

Bella agrees to move to Forks, WA to live with her father. Why? She wants to give her mother the freedom to travel around with her new boyfriend, a minor-league baseball player. Clearly, we've all known someone in this situation in our lives. And an outcast girl moving from the always sunny Phoenix to the Pacific Northwest, where the sun never shines? Yeah, vampires are coming.

Meet Edward Cullen
Sadly, Edward does not go by "Fast Eddie" or even "Bloodsucker Ed", both of which are reasons I will never be in charge of making a movie in my lifetime. Not to spoil anything, but if you can't tell from that douchetastic picture of Edward above, he's a vampire. But everything is ok because the Cullen family sucks the blood out of animals, not humans. So he and Bella fall in love.

Meet James

James is a total badass vampire and the only one in this sordid tale worth paying attention to. He's clearly trying to bring back the "jacket with no shirt on" look made famous by Gerardo, as seen in the comparison above. But while Mr. Rico Suave was rocking the shirtless look in more humid climates, James has the undead balls to rock the look where temperatures are regularly in the 40's! Legit!

Anywho, James wants to hunt Bella for sport because he's just that bad ass. Bella is sent back to Arizona for safe keeping, but James calls her and says he has Bella's mother hostage and will only give her up if Bella takes her place. Edward and his family show up to save Bella, but not before James bites her in the hand. Edward sucks the vampire venom out of her and to keep her from being a vampire too. Then Bella and Edward go to prom. She says she wants to be a vampire too. Edward says fuck no. That is how the book ends.

Having never read any of these books or seen any footage from the movie, I bet I can still come up with a pretty accurate review for this Friday's movie. When the official reviews come out, compare them to what you are about to read and we can see how close I was:

This movie is nothing than a 90 minute commercial for the 4 Twilight books, fulfilling the suppressed fantasies of countless 40-50 year old women as well as those girls in the coveted 12-16 year old demographic. Fans of the books will pitch a tent over it, some as screaming Beatlemania-esque mobs. Everyone else will go see Quantum of Solace.

Now I know what you''re asking: "Mr. Funk, you criticize this lovely romantic story of bloodsucking vampire emo families, but you don't say what you would do to make it better!" Well I'm glad you asked, faithful reader! I know the exact way to make this movie, and the entire Twilight series 1000 times more awesome.

Goblins.

Zombies, vampires, werewolves (yes, werewolves show up in book #2)...they all get love. Where's the love for goblins? Goblins are much cooler than all of those things. Just compare the definition of the two:

Vampires are mythological or folkloric revenants who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living.

A goblin is an evil, crabby, and mischievous creature described as a grotesquely disfigured or gnome-like phantom, that may range in height from that of a dwarf to that of a human.

Which would you rather watch a movie about? I'll take goblins every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Goblins would have befriended Bella just to get her into their cave-dwelling and eaten her. Or made her into their slave. Or just played a bunch of tricks on her. I see the goblin version of Twilight being some kind of cross between From Dusk Till Dawn and Jackass: The Movie.

So when you go out this Friday to your local multiplex, remember to cast your vote for goblins over vampires. Goblins can provide change you can believe in. Vampires will fade with the next trend. Goblins are timeless. Yes they can.

Fuckin' Goblins Rawk!