Poll: Twilight honored among "Exorcist" and "The Shining" at Academy Awards

[LiquidXlr8]

-Vampirism treated as something that makes you not human or monstrous and not a quality that makes you appealing to women.

Actually in the movie Interview with a Vampire (one of my favorite vampire movies) the main vamp whose name I forget at the moment (Lestat? I know that name was in the movie, might be the vamp's name) is good with women and it's for a reason that makes sense. He's able to live a normal social life, go to parties and such, and doesn't have to use the physical effort to leap out of the shadows and carry someone off to feed. Instead he talks to women, rapidly gains their trust, then he takens them somewhere more private to make her into a beverage. It's acceptable to me because it's a vampire that uses his mind instead of brute force to get a drink. Thing that you'll probably catch me on is they never realize he's a vampire until he's got his teeth into their neck (or in one interesting scene, breasts).

Favourite movie and you don't remember that the main character is Louis? Or the rather brutal scenes of the Theates des' Vampires abducting people and killing them on stage for thrills? Anne Rice did a fantastic job of revitalizing the vampire genre and at the same time creating characters who were the anti-vampire. Hell the second book "The Vampire Lestat" was mostly about the titular character upsetting the status quo among the established old school vampires.

 

[OldManProdigy]

Yeah it's horror in the sense that it's HORRIBLE, HARHARHAR!

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And how do you get horror~romance?

WARNING: this post will scare you.

Horror, and vampires in particular have always been about romance. Dracula was always portrayed as a charismatic, well-spoken man, he didn't force people into his castle, he lured and charmed them in. He even killed his victims in an embrace that looks and feels exactly like a bit of passionate necking until you feel the fangs sink in and then it's too late. If you want to see the inspiration for Twilight's vampires, look to the source. Twilight's vision of what a vampire is, is actually a lot closer in spirit to Bram Stoker's book than almost every other recent vampire film made, most of which take amazingly brazen liberties with the "vampire" formula (space vampires, zombie vampires, vampire werewolves, etc). A bitter pill for people here to swallow, no doubt, but Twilight succeeded while so many other vampire films disappeared into the land of 'meh' because Twilight actually mostly got vampires right[/i].

Grief counselling is available via PM for distraught horror fans (as this thread will be locked soon no doubt).

Well, maybe vampires for horror~romance, but not horror in general. How would you get romance out of an actual horror based werewolf movie?

Also, I thought the main vampire in Twilight didn't want to bight the main character, wouldn't that kind of mess things up? Or am I just wrong and he's toying with her?

Well, is that not where the appeal lies? The man is willing to (attempt to) exercise control the natural urges for the sake of her? This type of moral quandary also appears in Bram Stoker's book and several early vampire film incarnations and gave those early protagonists a bit of extra depth.

A werewolf is a man when he's not a wolf. In traditional werewolf literature, the werewolf only become a wolf during the full moon. Usually, once again, the werewolf in film "as man" is a romantic person with a love interest, who then has the torment of trying to hide his true nature and explain his awkward monthly absences to the girl he cares about. A constant battle between primal instinct and romantic ideals, once again, not unlike Twilight.

When did Dracula not want to feed? He only exercised control because it is socially uncouth to jump out and yell "Bleagh!" and start sucking.

As for the Werewolf one, then it becomes a romance movie instead of horror because the focus has shifted to love instead of constant stalking.

Well, yes, yes it does. Most werewolf films aren't just 90 minutes of a wolf chowing down. That would be boring (and most newer werewolf films that are nothing but this ARE very boring as a result). The classic werewolf films are all romance tales gone wrong.

Dracula always wanted to feed, but he had too much style and poise to go around just knocking off randoms. He knew the classiest way to feed on subjects of his required standard was to seduce his prey and let them come to him. He had the mansion, the bling and so forth, he knew what girls of the day liked. But there was always a little bit inside of him that had to try hard not to actually fall in love with the victims... hence the female character who always gets to stay in the house that little bit longer than her peers...

Well alright, fair enough. I still don't think horror and romance are intrinsic to each other, but it's there enough.

But the slight romance undercurrent in Dracula is different from the Twilight romance. His romance was a deepening feature to make him appear more human and that he was trying to turn himself into a true monster. But the Twilight vampire that has already given up and accepted romance is now nothing more then a super strong jumping jack. Part of why the Dracula romance is part of the horror is that he's still hunting people despite his lingering humanity. But Twilight vampire isn't actively hunting characters. He could be replaced with Superman and it would still work. That's all romance with the only horror coming from outside characters attacking.

So if I were to post images from "Interview with a Vampire" into that gallery, would that have been considered horror. Because it obviously had horror elements. Anne Rice even won the Bram Stoker award for the series. But is also HEAVILY based around the romances. At one point you even have vampires who can and do walk in the sun.

It has horror elements, but is not a horror story. The way I figure it, the focus is on the romance enough that if you pull out the horror elements, it still stands on its own as a romance novel. It straddles the line better than Twilight, but I consider it in the same genre of Romance over some light horror. But again, all the horror comes from outside influences apart from the main characters. So it shouldn't be in a horror montage, but it has more horror credibility than Twilight.

Forgive me, I may be misunderstanding, but doesn't all horror come from "outside influences apart from the main characters"? Jason, Freddy, and Michael for example. Even the demon from the Exorcist could be considered an "outside influence"

Not necessarily. As BonsaiK said when I brought up werewolves, the horror comes from your former lover trying to eat you. The entire story could revolve around the 2 main characters giving us a defined and fleshed out protagonist and antagonist. Or we could consider both characters the protagonist and the act of transforming the antagonist. But with Twilight, we have two main characters get assaulted from people who are brought up from time to time as episodic villains of sorts. The characters love each other and their love is assaulted by person with a grudge #4. The only thing that separates this from a full romance novel is that the antagonist wants to kill or maim one of the main characters instead of just breaking them up. A true horror story doesn't have their love assaulted, it would just be a casualty of them dying.

Could we perhaps concede that it is a fantasy romance, with heavy horror elements, perhaps? Using the same logic I could easily strip the horror from both jaws and silence of the lambs, calling one a monster movie (and if jaws is horror then so is Jurassic Park) and Silence being a long form Crime Drama/Thriller that is easily in the same vein as CSI or BONES?

Two of the three statements are true. I had been trying to say, Twilight is romance with horror added on and Silence of the Lambs is not really a horror movie. But I can only see monster movies as pure horror movies. Alien and War of the Worlds etc is the only way to be able to avoid romance entirely for a horror movie.

 

[BonsaiK]

I don't see that as a problem. It's still a far, far less butchered interpretation of "vampirism" than just about all the modern variants I've seen. Besides, millions of people love it, so who am I to argue?

Who are you to argue? You're a logical, thinking, singular human being. You argue because you see something that has become popular, despite there being virtually no redeeming quality to it, and question this reality.

Something that a lot of people have a hard time understanding, especially on internet forums where everyone is trying to be too cool for school, is this:

If entertainment objects do not entertain, they do not get popular.

Read that again. And again. Then think about it. Let it sink in. No, really think about it. Think about all those movies, music, art etc that you hate that gets popular.

I work in a part of the (for want of a better word) "entertainment industry". If something is completely crap, it cannot be sold. People do not buy it. They will not experience it, it doesn't matter how much marketing and promotion you throw at it, they WILL NOT BUY. I've seen people go bankrupt by funneling too much of their own money into a project that they honestly believed was great, but it was not. When people didn't buy it, the people making it just said "oh, people are stupid, they don't know what good music is". Horseshit. People might not know everything about music, but they know what they like.

There's a story about a guy here in Sydney, Australia (name escapes me) many years ago whose Dad ran into a large amount of money, a gigantic sum, more than enough to launch any artist's career. The Dad, clearly figuring that most popstars were talentless anyway and got by only on promotion and marketing, decided to use all this money make a rockstar dream come true for his son, despite the fact that his son couldn't really sing or play or write songs very well. He put ads everywhere (including, most notoriously, in the back of taxicabs), harassed TV and radio stations constantly, and after a few months of this EVERYONE in Sydney knew the guy's name. No-one bought his stuff though, because it was shit. Okay, a few did, just to laugh at it. Eventually the son lost interest and knew that it was never going to happen for him.

My point being, that if Twilight really was the bucket of shit that so many people claim, it would not have become such an entertainment phenomenon. Something that is shit just cannot get that level of success. It obviously touches a chord deep within a lot of people. You may personally hate it, that's fine, but to say that it objectively "has no redeeming features" is so much nonsense.

 

[Riobux]

You heard me, "Twilight" was honored in a horror movie montage that included such films as "Jaws", "Silence of the Lambs", "Friday the Thirteenth", "The Shining", "The Exorcist", and "Rosemary's Baby" among others.

As another personal slap in the face of horror movie fans, the tribute to horror films was actually presented on stage by the two stars of the second Twilight film.

Your thoughts?

What did we do wrong to deserve this? Maybe it's because, not to sound bias, most people that have a strong sense of quality-control and are very critical have moved onto games ever since that media has improved dramatically from something simply something interactive to a real alternative if not possible superior.

Twilight is just the nail in the coffin. Just need to bury the corpse.

 

[Xan Krieger]

-Vampirism treated as something that makes you not human or monstrous and not a quality that makes you appealing to women.

Actually in the movie Interview with a Vampire (one of my favorite vampire movies) the main vamp whose name I forget at the moment (Lestat? I know that name was in the movie, might be the vamp's name) is good with women and it's for a reason that makes sense. He's able to live a normal social life, go to parties and such, and doesn't have to use the physical effort to leap out of the shadows and carry someone off to feed. Instead he talks to women, rapidly gains their trust, then he takens them somewhere more private to make her into a beverage. It's acceptable to me because it's a vampire that uses his mind instead of brute force to get a drink. Thing that you'll probably catch me on is they never realize he's a vampire until he's got his teeth into their neck (or in one interesting scene, breasts).

Favourite movie and you don't remember that the main character is Louis? Or the rather brutal scenes of the Theates des' Vampires abducting people and killing them on stage for thrills? Anne Rice did a fantastic job of revitalizing the vampire genre and at the same time creating characters who were the anti-vampire. Hell the second book "The Vampire Lestat" was mostly about the titular character upsetting the status quo among the established old school vampires.

Favorite vampire movie but I don't watch movies much anymore, only thing I ever watch on TV is professional wrestling because the rest of the time I'm on this computer.

 

[LiquidXlr8]

And how do you get horror~romance?

WARNING: this post will scare you.

Horror, and vampires in particular have always been about romance. Dracula was always portrayed as a charismatic, well-spoken man, he didn't force people into his castle, he lured and charmed them in. He even killed his victims in an embrace that looks and feels exactly like a bit of passionate necking until you feel the fangs sink in and then it's too late. If you want to see the inspiration for Twilight's vampires, look to the source. Twilight's vision of what a vampire is, is actually a lot closer in spirit to Bram Stoker's book than almost every other recent vampire film made, most of which take amazingly brazen liberties with the "vampire" formula (space vampires, zombie vampires, vampire werewolves, etc). A bitter pill for people here to swallow, no doubt, but Twilight succeeded while so many other vampire films disappeared into the land of 'meh' because Twilight actually mostly got vampires right[/i].

Grief counselling is available via PM for distraught horror fans (as this thread will be locked soon no doubt).

Well, maybe vampires for horror~romance, but not horror in general. How would you get romance out of an actual horror based werewolf movie?

Also, I thought the main vampire in Twilight didn't want to bight the main character, wouldn't that kind of mess things up? Or am I just wrong and he's toying with her?

Well, is that not where the appeal lies? The man is willing to (attempt to) exercise control the natural urges for the sake of her? This type of moral quandary also appears in Bram Stoker's book and several early vampire film incarnations and gave those early protagonists a bit of extra depth.

A werewolf is a man when he's not a wolf. In traditional werewolf literature, the werewolf only become a wolf during the full moon. Usually, once again, the werewolf in film "as man" is a romantic person with a love interest, who then has the torment of trying to hide his true nature and explain his awkward monthly absences to the girl he cares about. A constant battle between primal instinct and romantic ideals, once again, not unlike Twilight.

When did Dracula not want to feed? He only exercised control because it is socially uncouth to jump out and yell "Bleagh!" and start sucking.

As for the Werewolf one, then it becomes a romance movie instead of horror because the focus has shifted to love instead of constant stalking.

Well, yes, yes it does. Most werewolf films aren't just 90 minutes of a wolf chowing down. That would be boring (and most newer werewolf films that are nothing but this ARE very boring as a result). The classic werewolf films are all romance tales gone wrong.

Dracula always wanted to feed, but he had too much style and poise to go around just knocking off randoms. He knew the classiest way to feed on subjects of his required standard was to seduce his prey and let them come to him. He had the mansion, the bling and so forth, he knew what girls of the day liked. But there was always a little bit inside of him that had to try hard not to actually fall in love with the victims... hence the female character who always gets to stay in the house that little bit longer than her peers...

Well alright, fair enough. I still don't think horror and romance are intrinsic to each other, but it's there enough.

But the slight romance undercurrent in Dracula is different from the Twilight romance. His romance was a deepening feature to make him appear more human and that he was trying to turn himself into a true monster. But the Twilight vampire that has already given up and accepted romance is now nothing more then a super strong jumping jack. Part of why the Dracula romance is part of the horror is that he's still hunting people despite his lingering humanity. But Twilight vampire isn't actively hunting characters. He could be replaced with Superman and it would still work. That's all romance with the only horror coming from outside characters attacking.

So if I were to post images from "Interview with a Vampire" into that gallery, would that have been considered horror. Because it obviously had horror elements. Anne Rice even won the Bram Stoker award for the series. But is also HEAVILY based around the romances. At one point you even have vampires who can and do walk in the sun.

It has horror elements, but is not a horror story. The way I figure it, the focus is on the romance enough that if you pull out the horror elements, it still stands on its own as a romance novel. It straddles the line better than Twilight, but I consider it in the same genre of Romance over some light horror. But again, all the horror comes from outside influences apart from the main characters. So it shouldn't be in a horror montage, but it has more horror credibility than Twilight.

Forgive me, I may be misunderstanding, but doesn't all horror come from "outside influences apart from the main characters"? Jason, Freddy, and Michael for example. Even the demon from the Exorcist could be considered an "outside influence"

Not necessarily. As BonsaiK said when I brought up werewolves, the horror comes from your former lover trying to eat you. The entire story could revolve around the 2 main characters giving us a defined and fleshed out protagonist and antagonist. Or we could consider both characters the protagonist and the act of transforming the antagonist. But with Twilight, we have two main characters get assaulted from people who are brought up from time to time as episodic villains of sorts. The characters love each other and their love is assaulted by person with a grudge #4. The only thing that separates this from a full romance novel is that the antagonist wants to kill or maim one of the main characters instead of just breaking them up. A true horror story doesn't have their love assaulted, it would just be a casualty of them dying.

Could we perhaps concede that it is a fantasy romance, with heavy horror elements, perhaps? Using the same logic I could easily strip the horror from both jaws and silence of the lambs, calling one a monster movie (and if jaws is horror then so is Jurassic Park) and Silence being a long form Crime Drama/Thriller that is easily in the same vein as CSI or BONES?

Two of the three statements are true. I had been trying to say, Twilight is romance with horror added on and Silence of the Lambs is not really a horror movie. But I can only see monster movies as pure horror movies. Alien and War of the Worlds etc is the only way to be able to avoid romance entirely for a horror movie.

Whereas I can only see monster movies as action/adventure (excepting Paranormal Activity, because of the strong psychological bent it achieves when viewed with a large group of people) because the horror only works (imo)until the monster is seen. But again, I am incredibly picky about my horror and will accept nothing of less quality than Lovecrafts' finest works into my private collection.

 

[dolfan1304]

My thoughts at the time.
"Finally, horror is getting some recognition. I wonder who they will get to... no, NOOOOOOOOOO"

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And how do you get horror~romance?

WARNING: this post will scare you.

Horror, and vampires in particular have always been about romance. Dracula was always portrayed as a charismatic, well-spoken man, he didn't force people into his castle, he lured and charmed them in. He even killed his victims in an embrace that looks and feels exactly like a bit of passionate necking until you feel the fangs sink in and then it's too late. If you want to see the inspiration for Twilight's vampires, look to the source. Twilight's vision of what a vampire is, is actually a lot closer in spirit to Bram Stoker's book than almost every other recent vampire film made, most of which take amazingly brazen liberties with the "vampire" formula (space vampires, zombie vampires, vampire werewolves, etc). A bitter pill for people here to swallow, no doubt, but Twilight succeeded while so many other vampire films disappeared into the land of 'meh' because Twilight actually mostly got vampires right[/i].

Grief counselling is available via PM for distraught horror fans (as this thread will be locked soon no doubt).

Well, maybe vampires for horror~romance, but not horror in general. How would you get romance out of an actual horror based werewolf movie?

Also, I thought the main vampire in Twilight didn't want to bight the main character, wouldn't that kind of mess things up? Or am I just wrong and he's toying with her?

Well, is that not where the appeal lies? The man is willing to (attempt to) exercise control the natural urges for the sake of her? This type of moral quandary also appears in Bram Stoker's book and several early vampire film incarnations and gave those early protagonists a bit of extra depth.

A werewolf is a man when he's not a wolf. In traditional werewolf literature, the werewolf only become a wolf during the full moon. Usually, once again, the werewolf in film "as man" is a romantic person with a love interest, who then has the torment of trying to hide his true nature and explain his awkward monthly absences to the girl he cares about. A constant battle between primal instinct and romantic ideals, once again, not unlike Twilight.

When did Dracula not want to feed? He only exercised control because it is socially uncouth to jump out and yell "Bleagh!" and start sucking.

As for the Werewolf one, then it becomes a romance movie instead of horror because the focus has shifted to love instead of constant stalking.

Well, yes, yes it does. Most werewolf films aren't just 90 minutes of a wolf chowing down. That would be boring (and most newer werewolf films that are nothing but this ARE very boring as a result). The classic werewolf films are all romance tales gone wrong.

Dracula always wanted to feed, but he had too much style and poise to go around just knocking off randoms. He knew the classiest way to feed on subjects of his required standard was to seduce his prey and let them come to him. He had the mansion, the bling and so forth, he knew what girls of the day liked. But there was always a little bit inside of him that had to try hard not to actually fall in love with the victims... hence the female character who always gets to stay in the house that little bit longer than her peers...

Well alright, fair enough. I still don't think horror and romance are intrinsic to each other, but it's there enough.

But the slight romance undercurrent in Dracula is different from the Twilight romance. His romance was a deepening feature to make him appear more human and that he was trying to turn himself into a true monster. But the Twilight vampire that has already given up and accepted romance is now nothing more then a super strong jumping jack. Part of why the Dracula romance is part of the horror is that he's still hunting people despite his lingering humanity. But Twilight vampire isn't actively hunting characters. He could be replaced with Superman and it would still work. That's all romance with the only horror coming from outside characters attacking.

So if I were to post images from "Interview with a Vampire" into that gallery, would that have been considered horror. Because it obviously had horror elements. Anne Rice even won the Bram Stoker award for the series. But is also HEAVILY based around the romances. At one point you even have vampires who can and do walk in the sun.

It has horror elements, but is not a horror story. The way I figure it, the focus is on the romance enough that if you pull out the horror elements, it still stands on its own as a romance novel. It straddles the line better than Twilight, but I consider it in the same genre of Romance over some light horror. But again, all the horror comes from outside influences apart from the main characters. So it shouldn't be in a horror montage, but it has more horror credibility than Twilight.

Forgive me, I may be misunderstanding, but doesn't all horror come from "outside influences apart from the main characters"? Jason, Freddy, and Michael for example. Even the demon from the Exorcist could be considered an "outside influence"

Not necessarily. As BonsaiK said when I brought up werewolves, the horror comes from your former lover trying to eat you. The entire story could revolve around the 2 main characters giving us a defined and fleshed out protagonist and antagonist. Or we could consider both characters the protagonist and the act of transforming the antagonist. But with Twilight, we have two main characters get assaulted from people who are brought up from time to time as episodic villains of sorts. The characters love each other and their love is assaulted by person with a grudge #4. The only thing that separates this from a full romance novel is that the antagonist wants to kill or maim one of the main characters instead of just breaking them up. A true horror story doesn't have their love assaulted, it would just be a casualty of them dying.

Could we perhaps concede that it is a fantasy romance, with heavy horror elements, perhaps? Using the same logic I could easily strip the horror from both jaws and silence of the lambs, calling one a monster movie (and if jaws is horror then so is Jurassic Park) and Silence being a long form Crime Drama/Thriller that is easily in the same vein as CSI or BONES?

Two of the three statements are true. I had been trying to say, Twilight is romance with horror added on and Silence of the Lambs is not really a horror movie. But I can only see monster movies as pure horror movies. Alien and War of the Worlds etc is the only way to be able to avoid romance entirely for a horror movie.

Whereas I can only see monster movies as action/adventure (excepting Paranormal Activity, because of the strong psychological bent it achieves when viewed with a large group of people) because the horror only works (imo)until the monster is seen. But again, I am incredibly picky about my horror and will accept nothing of less quality than Lovecrafts' finest works into my private collection.

Fair point. It's all opinion anyway.

 

[Icehearted]

I told you all the Oscars were bullshit, but did you listen? Noooooooooo!

As for Twilight, I haven't seen or read it, except for a few trailers; but it sure as hell didn't strike me as a horror film. More like an episode of 90210 with, what was supposed to be a vampire, but didn't quite pull it off.

I believed you, honest! I also agree about the 90210 remark.
Twilight is like Anne Rice dumbed down for tweens that need a generic heartthrob to gush over. I must admit, when they said vampires glitter in the sunlight I realized that vampires as a whole had jumped the shark. I can only imagine what things will be like it another 15 years.

OT: HE FREAKIN GLITTERS IN SUNLIGHT!
Silly, yes, horror, no.

 

[LiquidXlr8]

And how do you get horror~romance?

WARNING: this post will scare you.

Horror, and vampires in particular have always been about romance. Dracula was always portrayed as a charismatic, well-spoken man, he didn't force people into his castle, he lured and charmed them in. He even killed his victims in an embrace that looks and feels exactly like a bit of passionate necking until you feel the fangs sink in and then it's too late. If you want to see the inspiration for Twilight's vampires, look to the source. Twilight's vision of what a vampire is, is actually a lot closer in spirit to Bram Stoker's book than almost every other recent vampire film made, most of which take amazingly brazen liberties with the "vampire" formula (space vampires, zombie vampires, vampire werewolves, etc). A bitter pill for people here to swallow, no doubt, but Twilight succeeded while so many other vampire films disappeared into the land of 'meh' because Twilight actually mostly got vampires right[/i].

Grief counselling is available via PM for distraught horror fans (as this thread will be locked soon no doubt).

Well, maybe vampires for horror~romance, but not horror in general. How would you get romance out of an actual horror based werewolf movie?

Also, I thought the main vampire in Twilight didn't want to bight the main character, wouldn't that kind of mess things up? Or am I just wrong and he's toying with her?

Well, is that not where the appeal lies? The man is willing to (attempt to) exercise control the natural urges for the sake of her? This type of moral quandary also appears in Bram Stoker's book and several early vampire film incarnations and gave those early protagonists a bit of extra depth.

A werewolf is a man when he's not a wolf. In traditional werewolf literature, the werewolf only become a wolf during the full moon. Usually, once again, the werewolf in film "as man" is a romantic person with a love interest, who then has the torment of trying to hide his true nature and explain his awkward monthly absences to the girl he cares about. A constant battle between primal instinct and romantic ideals, once again, not unlike Twilight.

When did Dracula not want to feed? He only exercised control because it is socially uncouth to jump out and yell "Bleagh!" and start sucking.

As for the Werewolf one, then it becomes a romance movie instead of horror because the focus has shifted to love instead of constant stalking.

Well, yes, yes it does. Most werewolf films aren't just 90 minutes of a wolf chowing down. That would be boring (and most newer werewolf films that are nothing but this ARE very boring as a result). The classic werewolf films are all romance tales gone wrong.

Dracula always wanted to feed, but he had too much style and poise to go around just knocking off randoms. He knew the classiest way to feed on subjects of his required standard was to seduce his prey and let them come to him. He had the mansion, the bling and so forth, he knew what girls of the day liked. But there was always a little bit inside of him that had to try hard not to actually fall in love with the victims... hence the female character who always gets to stay in the house that little bit longer than her peers...

Well alright, fair enough. I still don't think horror and romance are intrinsic to each other, but it's there enough.

But the slight romance undercurrent in Dracula is different from the Twilight romance. His romance was a deepening feature to make him appear more human and that he was trying to turn himself into a true monster. But the Twilight vampire that has already given up and accepted romance is now nothing more then a super strong jumping jack. Part of why the Dracula romance is part of the horror is that he's still hunting people despite his lingering humanity. But Twilight vampire isn't actively hunting characters. He could be replaced with Superman and it would still work. That's all romance with the only horror coming from outside characters attacking.

So if I were to post images from "Interview with a Vampire" into that gallery, would that have been considered horror. Because it obviously had horror elements. Anne Rice even won the Bram Stoker award for the series. But is also HEAVILY based around the romances. At one point you even have vampires who can and do walk in the sun.

It has horror elements, but is not a horror story. The way I figure it, the focus is on the romance enough that if you pull out the horror elements, it still stands on its own as a romance novel. It straddles the line better than Twilight, but I consider it in the same genre of Romance over some light horror. But again, all the horror comes from outside influences apart from the main characters. So it shouldn't be in a horror montage, but it has more horror credibility than Twilight.

Forgive me, I may be misunderstanding, but doesn't all horror come from "outside influences apart from the main characters"? Jason, Freddy, and Michael for example. Even the demon from the Exorcist could be considered an "outside influence"

Not necessarily. As BonsaiK said when I brought up werewolves, the horror comes from your former lover trying to eat you. The entire story could revolve around the 2 main characters giving us a defined and fleshed out protagonist and antagonist. Or we could consider both characters the protagonist and the act of transforming the antagonist. But with Twilight, we have two main characters get assaulted from people who are brought up from time to time as episodic villains of sorts. The characters love each other and their love is assaulted by person with a grudge #4. The only thing that separates this from a full romance novel is that the antagonist wants to kill or maim one of the main characters instead of just breaking them up. A true horror story doesn't have their love assaulted, it would just be a casualty of them dying.

Could we perhaps concede that it is a fantasy romance, with heavy horror elements, perhaps? Using the same logic I could easily strip the horror from both jaws and silence of the lambs, calling one a monster movie (and if jaws is horror then so is Jurassic Park) and Silence being a long form Crime Drama/Thriller that is easily in the same vein as CSI or BONES?

Two of the three statements are true. I had been trying to say, Twilight is romance with horror added on and Silence of the Lambs is not really a horror movie. But I can only see monster movies as pure horror movies. Alien and War of the Worlds etc is the only way to be able to avoid romance entirely for a horror movie.

Whereas I can only see monster movies as action/adventure (excepting Paranormal Activity, because of the strong psychological bent it achieves when viewed with a large group of people) because the horror only works (imo)until the monster is seen. But again, I am incredibly picky about my horror and will accept nothing of less quality than Lovecrafts' finest works into my private collection.

Fair point. It's all opinion anyway.

True, but its 2:30 am, the wife's out of town, and I have a week off of school and work starting tomorrow. Might as well bicker on internet forums. I do feel however, that some progress has been made and someone may rethink their bandwagon-ing hatred of twilight after reading this thread. Who knows, we may have, through Twilight, introduced a future fan to the horror genre as a whole. And I refuse to believe that can ever be a bad thing.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

As another personal slap in the face of horror movie fans, the tribute to horror films was actually presented on stage by the two stars of the second Twilight film.

Far greater slap in the face was that they talked about not having a Horror film at the Oscars for 37 years, forgetting about "SILENCE OF THE LAMBS" that they showed in the clip.

My point being, that if Twilight really was the bucket of shit that so many people claim, it would not have become such an entertainment phenomenon. Something that is shit just cannot get that level of success. It obviously touches a chord deep within a lot of people. You may personally hate it, that's fine, but to say that it objectively "has no redeeming features" is so much nonsense.

Dear BonsaiK,
I work in the retail industry. I sell numerous items that have no entertainment value whatsoever. Many people coming home from Spain by straw donkeys. Many people will have watched Twilight and Transformers not because they want to be entertained, but by peer-pressure, need to be appalled or that they have no taste.

The chord Twilight touches is the same one that makes you go blind.

Objectively, Twilight is teen-girl pr0n. If you call that entertainment, then you've fallen into the same trap that markets the misery-pr0n to older women, the car-pr0n to older men and the drug-pr0n to younger men.

If you believe that The Da Vinci Code is anything more than a dirge of a manuscript designed by committee to hit specific buttons, then I suggest you re-read Angels and Demons, which is a better book - and then explain why DVC dominated while A&D didn't.

"We do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say how can you sell this for such a low price? I say because it is total crap."
"We even sell a pair of gold earrings for under £1, which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks & Spencer. But I have to say that the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings."

Sincerely, Root

If entertainment objects do not get marketed, they do not get popular.

 

[RanD00M]

Let*s put it this way.If Twilight is a horror movie,then Schindler's List is the greatest fucking comedy of all time.

 

[Lim3]

Edit: apologies for the double post, but i had trouble with the quote button.

 

[ZydrateDealer]

Oh yes I've always found shiny pricks with an aversion to having sex with a eager women terrifying...but then I am so tragically homophobic...not really but the point I'm trying to make is that NO twilight is not a horror film it's a romance!

It is however a work of fiction where any way you look at it there are supernatural creatures trying to kill the protaganists.

I would personally characterize it as a work of "dark fantasy" however, despite the romantic aspects, simply because the character "Edward" is the equal of most of the threats being faced. Or at least strong enough where I can't see him as being a victim in the truest sense.

I see the big differance between fantasy and horror is that in fantasy the protaganists are worthy of the opponents they face, in horror they are not and are typically underdogs far below most heroes (even weak ones who are supposed to be outclassed).

Unleash a bunch of aliens on an unprepared group of civilians on a space station and see a bloodbath, following the story of those civilians and you have horror. Drop someone like Master Chief or another Space-Marine type hero into the same enviroment, even with carnage all around, and now your looking at a work of space fantasy rather than horror, where all
you did was change the protaganist and his/her capabilities.

Take the first Alien movie for example, while set in space that was Horror. For Master Chief it would have been an annoyance (Blam! one shot from an uberweapon, the movie ends).

I suppose it's a romantic fantasy then but then if you think about your argument it really must be a horror because Bella is the protagonist and she could be killed at any point; don't worry I'm not saying it is because genres are defined by more than ONE feature and a piece of media(game/movie/TV programme/etc)can have features that are inclusive of different genres.

Eventually it all comes down to how you would classify the piece of media because humans have to categorise everything they see. On that note I see Twilight as a romance personally but I could have my arm twisted into saying it's a fantasy mostly because it is a complete work of fantasy on Meyer's part but also because I don't feel strongly enough about Twilight to argue over what the genre should be I just know that it shouldn't be a horror because there's no predictable scares, gore, psychopathic killers or titties...shame really.

Actually psychopathic killers makes up the better part of the last three books.

So it has two features of the horror genre...still not a horror but I guess if we have to classify it's a Romantic-Fantasy with Horror elements...actually I don't have to classify so feck this noise I'm going to the pub. I haven't read the books so I'm not really erm...qualified for want of a better word to comment on Meyer's work but I have seen the movies and had the entire plot explained to me on multiple occasions by a variety of women who have all said it's a great romance...Meyer is almost as overrated as Shakespeare, I weep for the children who'll be forced to study her in english classes the across the globe by the end of the century...poor little smug futuristic bastards

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And how do you get horror~romance?

WARNING: this post will scare you.

Horror, and vampires in particular have always been about romance. Dracula was always portrayed as a charismatic, well-spoken man, he didn't force people into his castle, he lured and charmed them in. He even killed his victims in an embrace that looks and feels exactly like a bit of passionate necking until you feel the fangs sink in and then it's too late. If you want to see the inspiration for Twilight's vampires, look to the source. Twilight's vision of what a vampire is, is actually a lot closer in spirit to Bram Stoker's book than almost every other recent vampire film made, most of which take amazingly brazen liberties with the "vampire" formula (space vampires, zombie vampires, vampire werewolves, etc). A bitter pill for people here to swallow, no doubt, but Twilight succeeded while so many other vampire films disappeared into the land of 'meh' because Twilight actually mostly got vampires right[/i].

Grief counselling is available via PM for distraught horror fans (as this thread will be locked soon no doubt).

Well, maybe vampires for horror~romance, but not horror in general. How would you get romance out of an actual horror based werewolf movie?

Also, I thought the main vampire in Twilight didn't want to bight the main character, wouldn't that kind of mess things up? Or am I just wrong and he's toying with her?

Well, is that not where the appeal lies? The man is willing to (attempt to) exercise control the natural urges for the sake of her? This type of moral quandary also appears in Bram Stoker's book and several early vampire film incarnations and gave those early protagonists a bit of extra depth.

A werewolf is a man when he's not a wolf. In traditional werewolf literature, the werewolf only become a wolf during the full moon. Usually, once again, the werewolf in film "as man" is a romantic person with a love interest, who then has the torment of trying to hide his true nature and explain his awkward monthly absences to the girl he cares about. A constant battle between primal instinct and romantic ideals, once again, not unlike Twilight.

When did Dracula not want to feed? He only exercised control because it is socially uncouth to jump out and yell "Bleagh!" and start sucking.

As for the Werewolf one, then it becomes a romance movie instead of horror because the focus has shifted to love instead of constant stalking.

Well, yes, yes it does. Most werewolf films aren't just 90 minutes of a wolf chowing down. That would be boring (and most newer werewolf films that are nothing but this ARE very boring as a result). The classic werewolf films are all romance tales gone wrong.

Dracula always wanted to feed, but he had too much style and poise to go around just knocking off randoms. He knew the classiest way to feed on subjects of his required standard was to seduce his prey and let them come to him. He had the mansion, the bling and so forth, he knew what girls of the day liked. But there was always a little bit inside of him that had to try hard not to actually fall in love with the victims... hence the female character who always gets to stay in the house that little bit longer than her peers...

Well alright, fair enough. I still don't think horror and romance are intrinsic to each other, but it's there enough.

But the slight romance undercurrent in Dracula is different from the Twilight romance. His romance was a deepening feature to make him appear more human and that he was trying to turn himself into a true monster. But the Twilight vampire that has already given up and accepted romance is now nothing more then a super strong jumping jack. Part of why the Dracula romance is part of the horror is that he's still hunting people despite his lingering humanity. But Twilight vampire isn't actively hunting characters. He could be replaced with Superman and it would still work. That's all romance with the only horror coming from outside characters attacking.

So if I were to post images from "Interview with a Vampire" into that gallery, would that have been considered horror. Because it obviously had horror elements. Anne Rice even won the Bram Stoker award for the series. But is also HEAVILY based around the romances. At one point you even have vampires who can and do walk in the sun.

It has horror elements, but is not a horror story. The way I figure it, the focus is on the romance enough that if you pull out the horror elements, it still stands on its own as a romance novel. It straddles the line better than Twilight, but I consider it in the same genre of Romance over some light horror. But again, all the horror comes from outside influences apart from the main characters. So it shouldn't be in a horror montage, but it has more horror credibility than Twilight.

Forgive me, I may be misunderstanding, but doesn't all horror come from "outside influences apart from the main characters"? Jason, Freddy, and Michael for example. Even the demon from the Exorcist could be considered an "outside influence"

Not necessarily. As BonsaiK said when I brought up werewolves, the horror comes from your former lover trying to eat you. The entire story could revolve around the 2 main characters giving us a defined and fleshed out protagonist and antagonist. Or we could consider both characters the protagonist and the act of transforming the antagonist. But with Twilight, we have two main characters get assaulted from people who are brought up from time to time as episodic villains of sorts. The characters love each other and their love is assaulted by person with a grudge #4. The only thing that separates this from a full romance novel is that the antagonist wants to kill or maim one of the main characters instead of just breaking them up. A true horror story doesn't have their love assaulted, it would just be a casualty of them dying.

Could we perhaps concede that it is a fantasy romance, with heavy horror elements, perhaps? Using the same logic I could easily strip the horror from both jaws and silence of the lambs, calling one a monster movie (and if jaws is horror then so is Jurassic Park) and Silence being a long form Crime Drama/Thriller that is easily in the same vein as CSI or BONES?

Two of the three statements are true. I had been trying to say, Twilight is romance with horror added on and Silence of the Lambs is not really a horror movie. But I can only see monster movies as pure horror movies. Alien and War of the Worlds etc is the only way to be able to avoid romance entirely for a horror movie.

Whereas I can only see monster movies as action/adventure (excepting Paranormal Activity, because of the strong psychological bent it achieves when viewed with a large group of people) because the horror only works (imo)until the monster is seen. But again, I am incredibly picky about my horror and will accept nothing of less quality than Lovecrafts' finest works into my private collection.

Fair point. It's all opinion anyway.

True, but its 2:30 am, the wife's out of town, and I have a week off of school and work starting tomorrow. Might as well bicker on internet forums. I do feel however, that some progress has been made and someone may rethink their bandwagon-ing hatred of twilight after reading this thread. Who knows, we may have, through Twilight, introduced a future fan to the horror genre as a whole. And I refuse to believe that can ever be a bad thing.

My only real argument against Twilight is that it will build up different expectations of vampires so that when they read a more classical interpretation of a vampire (either the Dracula "stuck up count" or the slasher "monster" vampire), they assume that Twilight vampires are how vampires are supposed to be instead of a statistical outlier (in terms of personality, I don't care about powers for this argument).

 

[GamingAwesome1]

I almost dunked my head in my morning tea when I saw that title. Twilight is NOT a horror nor is it worthy of any type of award for anything other than "Most overrated by the teenage populace"