The Vampire Sisters (director: Wolfgang Groos)
Twelve-year-old Daka and Silvania are half-vampires – their mother is human and their father is a vampire. After growing up in a subterranean vampire city in Transylvania, their mother insists they try life above ground amongst other humans.So Daka and Silvania have to hide their true identities
Charles Baudelaire
The Ghost
Like angels with wild beast's eyes
I shall return to your bedroom
And silently glide toward you
With the shadows of the night;
And, dark beauty, I shall give you
Kisses cold as the moon
And the caresses of a snake
That crawls around a grave.
When the livid morning comes,
You'll find my place empty,
And it will be cold there till night.
I wish to hold sway over
Your life and youth by fear,
As others do by tenderness.
Lejla Panjeta: Monster as a Superhero: an Essay on Vampire Vogue in Contemporary Film Culture
Studii si Cercetari de Istoria Artei. Teatru, Muzica, Cinematogr;2011/2012, Vol. 5-6 Issue 49-50
* Lejla Panjeta, Ph.D., is an Associate
Professor at the International University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Arts and
Social
Sciences, Visual Arts and Communication Design. E-mail
address: panjeta.lejla@bih.net.ba.
Abstract
The worldwide popular series Twilight is
the mixed genre phenomenon in literature, media and
cinema. After monstrous cinema interpretations
of vampires, Edward Cullen becomes a vampire that
women fall in love with. Narrative draws on the
legend of vampires as well as on the fairy tales
archetype of the love between The Lady and the
Beast. Sexual connotation in the stories of vampires
are not new, but the global identification of
the audience with the main characters in the romantic-
horror plot in this series needs to be analyzed
through the evolution of the vampire genre and
psychology related issues. The popularity of
this series and blossoming hybrid genre is related to the
artificial catharsis and fulfillment of the
market demand. Contemporary audience demands “to be
special” and these profitable narratives are the
fulfilled promise to the audience.
Keywords : vampire
legends, teen vampire genre, abstinence narrative, vampires in cinema,
catharsis.
INTRODUCTION: ROMANTIC MONSTER OXYMORON
“And so the lion fell in love with a lamb… What
a stupid lamb… What a sick, masochistic lion”. 1 One
of the omens from the Book of Revelation that
the world as we know it will come to an end is described when
the lamb lies down with the lion. The story of Twilight
categorized as teen vampire romance genre is the
apocalypse of opposite genres: romance and
horror. The horror genre as we know it and the romance genre
have reached the point where their elements need
to be combined together in order to survive the market
demand of a consuming audience that desires more
catharsis induced by adrenalin and romance ecstasy. 2
Judging on the gained profit, this planetary
popular series is a phenomenon of the 21 st century.
Over
17 million copies of Twilight Saga have
been sold and translated into 37 languages. A graphic novel has
been issued, and the first three books of the
series have been made into movies. According to the box office
reports from the American and international
market, the movie Twilight 3 made
approximately 400 million
dollars, 4 New
Moon5 over 700 million dollars,6 Eclipse7 700
million dollars,8 and Breaking Dawn I 9 over
700 million dollars. 10
1 Stephenie Meyer, Twilight,
Vol. 1, London:
Atom, 2006, p. 240.
2 On this matter, see also Lejla
Panjeta, “Popularni kinematografski vampirizam”, Hrvatski filmski ljetopis,
No. 69, 2012.
3 Director: Catherine Hardwicke.
Release year: 2008.
4 See “Box Office Mojo: Twilight”,
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=twilight08.htm; last consulted in
December 2011.
5 Director: Chris Weitz. Release year:
2009.
6 See “Box Office Mojo: New Moon”, at
<http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=newmoon.htm>; last consulted in
December 2011.
7 Director: David Slade. Release year:
2010.
8 See “Box Office Mojo: Eclipse”, at
<http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=eclipse.htm>; last consulted in
December 2011.
9 Director: Bill Condon. Release year:
2011.
10 See “Box Office Mojo: Breaking
Dawn I”, at <http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=breakingdawn.htm>; last
consulted
in December 2011.
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