FOX Teen Choice Awards: Horror (and Twilight...)

I'm sure there must be some of you who care, so I might as well pass along the news that FOX has announced the nominees for the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, which are set to air Monday night. In what is far from a shocker, Twilight dominates, and the field of horror nominees in general is a sad testament to the state of the genre, and to the pandering way in which the younger generation has been made to perceive it by the corporate "tastemakers".

Teen Choice Award Nominees for "Choice Movie Horror/Thriller":

• The Uninvited
• Drag Me To Hell
• Friday The 13th
• Quarantine
• The Haunting of Molly Hartley

Drag Me to Hell is clearly the best of this bunch, but I'm wagering The Uninvited walks away with it. Just as I'm sure Twilight will beat out Slumdog Millionaire in the top category. The MTV Awards committed much the same crime not long ago, and this will be no different. Personally, I lost all faith in the MTV Awards back in 1994, when Menace II Society won out against Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and Philadelphia...

As for the sparkly vampire saga, it's landed a grand total of 12 nominations, ranging from "Choice Movie Drama" to... "Choice Male Hottie"... Hard to even type that...

To give you an idea of the demographic, Twilight's 12 noms is approached only by Gossip Girl and High School Musical 3, with 10 each. I know, I know, I'm expecting far too much from these young'uns, and I need to stop being such a bitter old man. But these are the people who will one day be running the country when I'm starting to cash in my social security (if it even still exists then). Do I want my beloved nation under the control of people whose idea of a great horror movie is The Uninvited? That could be even worse than the baby boomers being in charge.

OK, nothing could be that bad...

Twilight Inspires Real-Life Vampire Scare?

Apparently a whole bunch of grade school kids hopped up on Stephanie Meyer novels have been running around spreading rumors of vampirism in the sleepy town of Lake Stevens, Washington. According to Everett, Washington's Daily Herald, it all started last Friday, when a seventh grade girl met up with a fifth grade girl in a wooded park near Mount Pilchuk Elementary School.

And this is where the story diverges. The girl claims to have only hugged the boy. Yet the boy's friends ran back to the school claiming that she had actually bitten the boy on the forehead. First red flag: what self-respecting vampire would bite someone there? Unless that vampire happened to be a wrestling fan who had watched one too many Ric Flair matches...

Anyway, the whole thing spiraled out of control as the boys' story of being bitten in the woods expanded over the next few days to full scale reports of vampires in Lake Stevens, and of other boys being bitten all over their faces and having to be rescued from the woods. None of that stuff, however, seems to have any basis in reality.

Obviously, the hot speculation among parents and administrators is that Twilight is to blame. The book series and movie are quite popular with the tween students, and also remember that Twilight itself does take place in the dreary state of Washington, so it's not much of a stretch. Since it was a little girl allegedly doing the biting, I prefer to imagine the rumors were inspired by Let the Right One In. That's just infinitely cooler.

While local police were contacted, the boy's parents did not pursue anything, and so the issue was dropped pretty quickly. Since then, school officials have been busy sending home letters assuring parents that their kids are not in danger of falling prey to a pint-sized nosferatu.

So bottom line, some kids start telling tales out of school (literally), made up some stupid crap, rumors spread out of control, and a whole town gets up in arms. Someone needs to tell these hicks that that's how the Salem witch trials got started.

The Tuesday Top 10: Least Frightening Vampires

10. Evil Ed
Yeah, maybe he's kind of freaky when you're about ten years old, but all I can think of now when I look at him in Fright Night is, "I could totally kick this little dweeb's ass..." Besides, he was much scarier in 976-EVIL.... Anybody...?

9. George Hamilton
Captain Coppertone's performance as Dracula in Love at First Bite is right up there with Leslie Neilsen as one of the screen's silliest Counts. The only thing scary about him is his disco dancing, and bizarre attraction to Susan Saint James.

8. Stuart Townsend
Just when I thought Tom Cruise's Lestat was foppish enough, along comes Stuart "Not Good Enough to Play Aragorn" Townsend in the abominable Queen of the Damned. Speaking of vampires I could totally layeth the smacketh down upon...

7. Mark Kendall
Ah, Jim Carrey: The Early Years. Before The Riddler, The Mask, Ace Ventura or even Fire Marshall Bill, Carrey did his best Jerry Lewis impression as the virginal prey of MILFilicious Lauren Hutton in Once Bitten.

6. Eddie
Stephen Root (b.k.a. Milton from Office Space) was heartbreaking as this sad, doomed couch potato bloodsucker on True Blood. The prisoner of humans far more monstrous than he, Eddie is easily the most sympathetic vampire this side of Anne Rice.

5. Rudolph Sackville-Bagg
God love my sweet little daughter, but it truly was a sign of my unconditional love that I managed to sit through the turdtastic The Little Vampire with her from beginning to end. I kept waiting for the scene where the dorky kid from Jerry Maguire gets his throat torn open, but it never came.

4. Grandpa Munster
I never knew that Dracula could be played as a flamboyantly gay Catskills comedian until I witnessed Al Lewis' timeless performance on The Munsters. I think the main reason Lewis got the part was that he was the closest in age to the real thing.

3. Bunnicula
Unlike in James Howe's original kids novels, in the cartoon version Bunnicula did indeed possess "vampiric" abilities, including sucking the juice from vegetables and turning them into veggie-zombies. Yes kids, this was made in the 1970s.

2. Count Chocula
What do you expect from a character designed to push teeth-rotting marshmallow breakfast cereal on kids? Along with his cohorts Frankenberry, Boo Berry and yes, even Yummy Mummy, the Count demonstrated just how far these classic monsters had devolved from their originally fearsome positions in our culture...

1. Edward Cullen
You can take your pick: Is it the pouty lips? Perfectly coiffed yet made-to-look-like-I just-got-out-of-bed hair? Ability to sparkle like Rainbow Brite under direct sunlight? Maybe it's the brooding, I'm-so-misunderstood, bargain basement emo routine that was old in 2004. Or the fact that he's more likely to pounce on a squirrel for sustenance than anything else. Whatever the reason, this poster boy for the "supernatural romance" genre of drugstore fiction would fit in better cradling a buxom wench Fabio-style on some plantation in the cheesily painted cover of a novel my great aunt would read, rather than pretending to be a vampire.

*HONORABLE MENTION*
Count Von Count
I really should be flogged for leaving this guy out. Although I feel the need to point out that he used to be a whole lot creepier back in the '70s. Don't believe me? Check this shit out. But yeah, Sesame Street's resident undead muppet is totally harmless. Now if only someone had told my kids that before they met him at Sesame Place...

Thank God This Was Not *MY* Mother...

You know what, this may come as a surprise to some of you (and to others it will be the farthest thing from it) but I have been known from time to time to be something of a bitter old curmudgeon, grumpy beyond my years (although my years are catching up). And so I fully understand that some of you will accuse me of sour grapes when I continue the theme of Mother's Day here at the Vault by commenting on this particular fluff piece that annoyed the living crap out of me.

I think it's safe to say that my reaction to you as a human being can be decided by whether you find this story heart-warming or stomach-churning. I happen to be among the latter. The piece I'm referring to is a Mother's Day-themed feature that ran today in that journalistic giant, Farmington, New Mexico's Daily Times. Entitled, "Twilight Moms: Mothers' relationships grow through popular book" (do you feel the bile churning yet?), it's all about how 30-something-year-old moms from across this fine nation of ours have been brought together by Stephenie Meyer's safe and saccharine-sweet series of "vampire" novels. And how their relationships with their children have been strengthened by it.

One Lisa Hansen, a 36-year-old mother of two, gushes about creating the website Twilight Moms as a way of expressing her love for a book written for 12-year-old girls. She waxes rhapsodic about starting up her website as a way for similarly minded individuals to commune with one another in their obsession. It now has over 29,000 members--a fact which depresses, but doesn't surprise me.

The mothers soon began recommending the books to their daughters (and in some mind-boggling instances, their sons), thus passing along the mediocrity to the next generation.

"It's made us so much closer," said one of the moms. "We always had a great relationship, but now every night is a slumber party."

Sigh.

"We're totally normal people in the real world," says Hansen. "This web site has become a platform for regular wholesome human beings."

And I guess that's what sums up my revulsion in a nutshell. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm all for families getting closer together, and I'm sure part of this is just me in full-on "Bitch Pleeeeeeze" sarcastic blogger mode, but I just find it all but impossible to read this story without cringing. I think it's because these people are nothing less than infidels. Imposters sullying the good name of my favorite genre of film/literature. These are not horror fans. These are "regular, wholesome human beings." These are people who would be ashamed to be horror fans, and so are drawn to this syrupy saga because it is clean and acceptable.

Let's get something straight here. Horror is not created for "regular, wholesome people". It's created for the subversives in our culture; for the people with the slightly off-kilter perception of reality; the people who root for the bad guy; the people whose favorite way of coping with life's random cruelty is gallow's humor. In short, horror is the domain of the misfits, and we're damn proud of it.

The love of horror can most certainly be an excellent way for parents and kids to bond. But please folks, have some respect for yourself, and your kids. Don't expose them to this tripe. I'm a 34-year-old father of two, and I love bonding with my kids, but you know what? I do it by showing them Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. I do it by dressing them up as zombies for Halloween, and teaching them to imitate all the classic Universal monsters to a T. I do it by reading vampire stories to them before they go to bed at night, and listening to them whispering and giggling in excitement after I've gone downstairs.

My kids bought me Fido for Christmas last year. They've sat through Night of the Living Dead with me. To some this might make me a bad parent, but not in my estimation. You know what gives me that kind of confidence? The knowledge that I was raised the exact same way.

Much like the parents and kids in the aforementioned feature story, I also bonded with my mom through a common love. Only it was for The Exorcist and The Return of the Living Dead. It was for the novels of Anne Rice and Stephen King. My parents absolutely loved horror and still do, and I'm proud to say that I'm the fanboy I am today because of them. And I'm also quite sure I would've pulled an "Irreconcilible Differences" on them if they had chosen instead to confine me to safe, unpalatable pablum that only masquerades as horror.

So excuse me if I can't relate to these soccer moms and their spawn, folks I'm sure wouldn't go near the likes of Cannibal Holcaust, Bloodsucking Freaks or I Spit on Your Grave with a ten-foot Swiffer. Perhaps I am overreacting--in fact I'm almost positive that I am--but you'll have to forgive my overzealousness. There comes a time when true horror fans need to take a stand. And I think this precious little article just kind of pushed me over the edge today.

Ah... that feels better. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch The Satanic Rites of Dracula with my mom and son.

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For more Mother's Day horror goodness, and to read about another mom who raised her kid right, proceed directly to Day of the Woman for BJ-C's tribute to her horrorific momma...

Even the Eclipse Director Hates Twilight!

“Twilight drunk? No, not even drunk. Twilight on acid? No, not even on acid? Twilight at gun point? Just shoot me.”

Yep, the preceding was a tweet ejaculated upon the internets by one David Spade, way back last year, before the first Twilight movie was released. And... before Slade was announced as the director of the third film in the Twilight series, Eclipse.

Doh!

Slashfilm is reporting that a panicked Slade abruptly deleted his Twitter account this week, most likely after the offending tweet was discovered. Supposedly, producers Summit Entertainment have lapped up Slade's line about the comments being "a joke", but are worried about the hardcore Twilight fans. I, too, am worried about the hardcore Twilight fans, but for entirely different reasons.

Despite recent radio appearances orchestrated to help dispel the rumors, it would appear that yes, the once-edgy director of Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night has sold out faster than Halo 3.

Just in Case You Weren't Sure If Twilight Was Going to Be a Smash...

Yahoo Music reported today that the soundtrack to the upcoming vampire romance Twilight has actually debuted at number-one on the Billboard album chart--more than a week before the film is even released. It's the first soundtrack album to do so since 2002's 8 Mile. It's one of only seven soundtrack's to ever debut at #1, and one of only seven to reach that spot before its respective movie was released (one of which was The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.)

Clearly, there's a ravenous fan base out there that is prepared to make this movie one of the biggest money-makers of the year--perhaps second only to last summer's The Dark Knight. As I said in yesterday's post, vampires are cool again.

In case anyone's interested (I'm not, incidentally), the soundtrack contains tracks by the likes of Linkin Park, Perry Farrell and Collective Soul (they're still around?), as well as a song performed by Robert Pattinson, who plays the lead vampire Eric. The flick hits theaters on November 21.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Vault of Horror's recent outreach to the horror blogging community on the subject of casual vs. hardcore horror fandom seems to have created quite a buzz of late. For those wondering, I've already received a great many responses, and am in the process of tabulating the submitted lists now. There are still a few precincts left to be heard from, but I think this experiment is going to yield some interesting results.

Also, a reader of one of the participating blogs, And Now the Screaming Starts, claims to have taken part in the original HMV survey, and explained that HMV actually provided voters with a list of 50 movies, and asked them to pick their ten favorites. So basically, HMV asked readers to rank a list of 50 movies which the website had already selected--thus rendering their results even more of a sham than I originally thought. All the more reason to pool the collective wisdom of the cyber-horror elite to provide a list we can all be proud of. In other words, a list that doesn't include the 2004 remake of Salem's Lot.

Twilight Author Switches Media

Stephenie Meyer, on the verge of becoming the next J.K. Rowling, has been quite busy as of late. The author of the hugely successful and omnipresent Twilight vampire series was in the midst of the fifth book in the saga, Midnight Sun, when a draft of the novel leaked to the web.

Supremely ticked off by the leak, Meyer reportedly shelved the sequel (for the time being, anyway). And according to io9, she's apparently trying to move past the professional setback by shifting her creative juices to another medium entirely: music videos.

Meyer is a big fan of Southern California emo band Jack's Mannequin, mentioning them several times on her website. Well, it seems the band, no doubt seeing dollar signs in an affiliation with the white-hot horror writer--contacted her with a request to direct their next video, for their record "The Revolution". Reportedly, although the video is handled in a dark "Tim Burton-esque" kind of way, it is decidedly vampire-less.

Meyer began work on the project while still participating in the editing process of the upcoming film version of Twilight, collaborating with experienced music video cinematographer Noble Jones.

Not bad for a Mormon mother of three from Scottsdale.

What the Heck Is This Twilight Thing, Anyway?

Typically, I pride myself on having my finger on the pulse of genre culture at all times. That's why I was caught pretty much off guard by a veritable phenomenon that seems to have taken form right under my very nose without my knowing it.

It all started when I walked into my local library to find a bizarre display. A mannequin dressed in gothic clothing, with an advertisement for a new book on the wall next to it. What was behind this gimmickry? Seems my library, joining forces with my local Borders just down the street, was organizing a special after-hours "release party" for the upcoming publication of Breaking Dawn, the latest volume in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.

Okay. Just two questions, I thought. Who the heck is Stephenie Meyer, and what in blue blazes is the Twilight series? Apparently, I quickly discovered, there had been three books published in this best-selling series of vampire novels. Oh, and a forthcoming movie adaptation of the first book, Twilight.

Next thing I know, these books and their author are everywhere. On TV talk shows, news segments, the web, everywhere I turned. This new book Breaking Dawn approaches with a level of marketing hype unrivaled by anything but, well, Harry Potter. And Meyer is being hailed as "the next J.K. Rowling".

Now, I'll admit a deep, dark secret. Horror is not my favorite type of genre fiction. Horror maven I may be, but when it comes to my reading material, I'll take a good science-fiction novel any day. It all goes back to an interesting theory I've developed over the years. When it comes to movies, horror tends to get a better shake than sci-fi. It has a higher profile and is better regarded by the masses, tends to be more successful (barring a few aberrant summer blockbusters here and there), and can boast more cinematic classics (an inflammatory statement, to be sure.) But in the realm of fiction, sci-fi wins it hands down, being much more respected in both mainstream and literary circles, and of generally better quality than horror (with the exception of a handful of truly talented writers.)

So whether its my own personal bias or not, I really must not be as sharp as I used to be, because I never heard of any of this Twilight stuff before a few weeks ago. So what's the deal? Is this all just the product of a powerful marketing machine, or have I been blind to a burgeoning phenom in horror fiction? Are these books really all they're cracked up to be? Are they strictly for kids? Are they just overrated tripe? Fill me in, people.