Stop Pop Culture

Scanning my memory along the thousands of terrible movies the world of cinema has delivered to us in my lifetime, I decided to stick with the times and lash out on a recent flick that seemed to garner WAY TOO MUCH attention for a film that didn’t really deserve it. Films don’t deserve unnecessary praise when they’re just a watered down version of a movie before them that was way more original and just better all around. So, this time around, I decided to take teenage vampires to task because the love they’ve gotten recently is a little too “MTV” for me. And I don’t do MTV because MTV sucks.

TWILIGHT (Summitt Entertainment 2008)

Twilight started as a novel by Stephenie Meyer and became the teen vampire book became an enormous success with a bunch of different spin offs of the original. The wildly successful movie is its most prosperous project to date, taking in over $190 million in box office revenue. 

It tells the story of Isabella Swan (Bella) whose migration from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington entails the usual teen angst until she gets her life saved by a teen vampire who stops a moving van with his bare hands in the parking lot of their high school. Turns out Edward Cullen is a vampire, along with his family however, unlike most vampires, Edward and his blood-thirsty family drink the blood of animals rather than humans as their vampirish race should be doing. 

More stuff happens and twists get thrown into the whole ordeal to provide fans with a vague and unoriginal story usually reserved for movies like this. I’m not a fan of the book so I could care less how accurate the movie is in relation to the book but apparently, it’s a far cry from the novel in a bad way. But that’s usually the case with books taking a chance at the silver screen.

WATCH THIS INSTEAD

THE LOST BOYS (Warner Bros. 1987)

Funny how this 1987 horror/comedy movie about cool teenaged vampires was also about a teenager originally from Arizona who moves over to the west coast, this time to sunny California. Jason Patric plays Michael but this movie has tons and tons of good actors such as Diane Wiest, Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, teen superstars of the 1980′s. The cast alone sends it way passed Twilight in the “which is better” discussion so let’s put that to rest right off the bat.

As for originality, Twilight doesn’t stand a chance against The Lost Boys because not only is the actual story more creative and unique, the characters themselves are all so different, they each have their own little way of doing things, making each of them distinct. Basically, the coastal down of Santa Carla, California is infested by a local gang that, in all actuality, is really a gang of vampires with a twist. It’s so much like the normal gang activity that they even have an initiation rite for Michael (Patric).

To make this easy on you, get on your Netflix and get this bad boy sent to your house. Either that, or hit up the local video store and grab this on DVD. If you like any or all teenaged vampire movies, it’s damn near impossible for this one to disappoint. If it does, it’s probably a problem with your head, not the movie.

Tags: 1980's, 1987, 2008, actors, Animals, Arizona, Bella, blood, book, California, comedy, cool, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Diane Wiest, disappoint, DVD, Edward Cullen, family, Forks, high school, horror, Isabella Swan, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, local gang, MTV, Netflix, novel, originality, Phoenix, right off the bat, silver screen, Stephenie Meyer, Summitt Entertainment, teenaged, teenaged movies, teenaged vampire movies, teenagers, The Lost Boys, Twilight, vampire, vampires, vampirish, Warner Bros., Washington
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