TWILIGHT (2008) - Some Like It Cold.

Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

On this week's annotated deep-dive, The Cultists present Catherine Hardwick's wondrously absurd adaptation of Twilight (2008).

The tale of a self-loathing undead stalker who has been stuck repeating high school for one hundred years, and the clumsy death-welcoming teen of his dreams, Twilight is a wild trip. Known as the phenomenon that brought a reinvigorated interest in teen paranormal romance to the masses, Hardwick's first and only adaptation circumvents any of the potential softer angles of the genre to instead create a masterpiece of the bizarre. Three parts absurdism, two parts angst, and a healthy dash of the "imp of the perverse," this strange concoction of a film stands alone outside the rest of the subsequent franchise as something truly spectacular. (That's right, we love this movie. And we aren't even joking).

Deep Dives include:

The film's history and production; the myriad of practical effects; filming locations, comparisons with the novel source material; the joy of teen angst; the aesthetic paradox of May-December romances; Native American lore (from New Brunswick sea serpents to (the lack of) Cold Ones); and why, as even Hardwick herself claims, we have the special tonal peculiarities of this film thanks to a little thing Edgar Allen Poe once called "The Imp of the Perverse."