I know this review is slightly late, but I had been put off vampire films for ever after watching the big-hitter, “Låt Den Rätte Komma In.” It was with a lot of anxiety that I picked up the DVD. The brooding, menacing face of Robert Pattinson was slightly off-putting.

However, my fears were quickly dispelled: Twilight is a complete reinvention of the vampire mythos, light years away from the stale Swedish interpretation. The premise is original: Instead of being a violent, bloodthirsty beast, Edward Cullen’s vampire twinkles in the daylight. He vies with Jacob, a werewolf, for Bella’s affection.

Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson show off their incredible acting range, with Pattinson particularly impressing, going from brooding, to brooding through more brooding effortlessly. Never has an emo been so wonderfully ported to the big screen. His declarations of doomed love to Bella could be the lyrics of a My Chemical Romance song. Kristen Stewart employs her considerable talent to convey a realistic teenage girl: She spends half the movie biting her lip and the other half looking blankly into space.

The dialogue is as witty as anything as Aaron Sorkin has ever written. For instance, at one point Jacob turns up topless, and Edward snappily remarks, “Doesn’t he have some clothes?” What a burn! Jacob gets most of the best lines in the movie because of his attempts to seduce Bella. He repeats, “I know you love me,” (despite being constantly rejected) like a mantra, the leitmotiv reinforcing the sentence’s power. Bella eventually succumbs to this seduction technique, possible because Jacob also threatens to kill himself. The love triangle is perfectly credible: If you were a 107 year-old virgin vampire, wouldn’t you also want to tap that sexy, underage mortal ass?

Having not read the book, I eagerly await the next installment of this under-rated and ignored quadrilogy. Will Stephanie Meyer bring in Frankenstein’s monster into the menage a 3? A Mummy perhaps. With such great acting and script, one thing is sure, the Twilight franchise cannot fail.