(Note from the editor: I know I know, this came out like, aaaaages ago man. I expect the kidz have moved on to…well, let’s face it, they haven’t moved on at all have they? It’s been a perpetual round of Zombie/Vampire/Werewolf/Ninja interspersed with sporadic Chuck Norris sightings since 1996, which in my opinion proves that most people are a bunch of fucking dicktards who graze nonchalently on mass distributed culture without the wit or forethought to try discovering something new on their own. Fuck you. Ahem…anyway I wasn’t about to sit through a third helping of this toss, but luckily STS aren’t without resources, and have managed to recruit an actual real-live lady with hair and a nice voice and everything to go check this out – and apparently it was much better this time around! Huzzah! The excellent Jazz James investigates…)

Behold every neurotic 14 year-old girl’s dream: The latest installment of the Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Teenage angst is rife, Bella gets the horn and her battle between bestiality and necrophilia rages on. However, wishing to avenge her mate’s death, (proper) vampire Victoria begins to create an army of “newborn” vampires to challenge the Cullens and exterminate her.

I’m not going to lie; as a fully-certified member of the fairer sex, I may or may not have secretly enjoyed the – perhaps one-too-many – gratuitous shots of naked torsos that would flash on to the screen approximately every 1.54 seconds.

It’s enough to give any image-conscious man a bit of a complex.

Please don’t give up on this review already, I promise to keep shameless fangirling to a minimum and there will be no further sycophantic rambling about R-Patz’s sparkly body. Speaking of sparkles, it appeared that Slde had managed to restrain himself enough to keep them to a minimum There were times when Slade even allowed Eclipse to broach the dark horizons of traditional Gothic genre. Eclipse didn’t come without the odd toe-curlingly cringey scene, but thankfully avoids the melodramatic narrative of the first two installments and Slade attempts to branch out past its original fans to appeal to a wider audience.

Overall, Stewart, Pattinson and Launtner appear to have grown as actors and their roles seem much more established. Stewart manages to blink at the pace of a normal human being and Pattinson manages not to look in pain through the entirety of the film. Through the multi-species love triangle that dominates a large part of the film’s running time, Slade surprisingly manages to inject a lot of humour. I can’t help but think that this would have been a different story if it were Hardwicke.

My main criticism, would most definitely be of the portrayal of the newborn vampires. Although Samuel seems perfect for the role of vampire, with his chiseled features, the rest of the army is much less convincing. Instead of adopting the spectral-like movements of the Cullens, they were comparable to rabid tramps upon discovering a fresh McDonalds. They emanated no sense of real threat and it was glaringly obvious that Bella’s Eddy-Weddy and his coven would be there to save the day.

Eclipse will certainly keep manic fans squirming with pleasure; but fear not, husbands, boyfriends and potential boyfriends. There is lots more fast-paced action to keep you from falling asleep and the film even pokes fun at all of the semi-nakedness. However, I fear the Twilight franchise will never be dark or transgressive enough for vampire and Gothic purists.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that reading Twilight: New Moon and watching the subsequent movie adaptation is EXTREMELY BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

Proof also that, if you want to kill a youth movement, all you have to do is have a local news team affectionately cover it.

There were never any wolf packs for me to join at school. No wonder I turned out so neurotic and idiotic. Video below

Never mind Robert Pattinsons shit new film Remember Me, the only thing the Robsessed among you are really concerned about is this utter bollocks -yep, the Twilight: Eclipse full trailer is up, but this reaction video is far more entertaining…

You know when you put these things on Youtube they’re there forever right? You know that means in 10 years time when you’ve had that ‘Werewolf 4 life’ tattoo lasered off this will still be haunting you right? Just checkin’.

He's out in the sun. It makes even less sense than his haircut...

Universal’s attempts to update it’s classic monster properties have so far met with little success, instead inflicting the likes of Van Helsing on audiences and squandering some truly great premises, and while The Wolman won’t be to everyone’s taste, it’s certainly a step up from CGI fests such as The Mummy.

From the get go, there’s a very different feel about this film – that’s ‘film’ as opposed to ‘movie’ – with a pervading sense of dread that matches the original. The opening hunt scene showcases the Werewolf as a dangerous, feral predator lurking in the foggy wastes, and while there’s certainly a touch of CGI enhancement to the mist drifting about, it’s a fun, scary addition that we haven’t seen since American Werewolf’s moor-stalking.

After the quick and surprisingly bloody intro, we bump into the victim’s brother Lawrence Tutwell (Benicio Del Toro, cheekily foreshadowing events as he plays the lead in an on-screen production of Hamlet) and the film scores a genuinely huge bonus with it’s leading man, bringing a detailed, grounded and pathetic character rendition to the screen. Indeed, the presence of so many genuinely heavyweight thesps brings a gloriously Hammer-esque feel to proceedings – straight faced, and as such adding a delicious sense of camp without resorting to knowing winks or cheesy one liners. Director Joe Johnston certainly can’t be accused of talking down to his audience either, engaging with complex psychological questions – albeit with a light touch – as Del Toro questions if his transformations are real or a dream.

Indeed, this may turn out to be the film’s downfall; whether the measured plot and slow-ratcheting tension will hold the attention of a mainstream audience remains questionable, but the overall effect is engaging and never resorts to cat-in-cupboard moments to generate scares.

As the conclusion looms however, the action cranks up, the Wolfman stalking the city streets for an action-packed hunt, while there’s a lovely sequence at a masked ball that gives Johnston the chance to drop in his visual reference quota with marvellous, wryly amusing results.

While this may benefit from some editorial tightening, it’s nice to see a mainstream blockbuster that isn’t scared of taking it’s time with an ordered plot and engaging storyline. The cast are marvellous and we can only hope that this thinking monster movie marks a precedent after the woeful Steven Sommers excesses of previous attempts.

What better way to avoid the UK Snow than a a trip to the local googleplex you might think. Unfortunately something hits you pretty quickly as you glance through the now playing listings –yep, pretty much every film out this January is designed to send a shiver – either of horror or of boredom – down your spine, and Vampire Actioner Daybreakers is a trite case in point.

Etahn Hawke –who has an academy award nom remember – should really know better once the blue filters come out, but on paper this sounds amazing. Willem DaFoe with a crossbow, Sam Neill as a villainous bloodsucker, and poor, flat-faced Ethan caught in the middle as a human-sympathising vampire in a world ruled by the nosferatu.

Sounds like it’s got it all doesn’t it? Matrix/Blade action and corporate commentary mixed up with 28 Days Later/I Am Legend vampire-virus action. Make no mistake, the movie tries desperately to build a cult following, and if I were a dorky 15 year old I’d be taking style tips all the way through.

Unfortunately I’m not, which means that I spend the whole time rolling my eyes as one blatant plot point after another is sent in by smoke signal, yet still fails to cover the overly CGI-reliant action scenes that we’ve seen a million times before.

Mr.Hawke plays Edward –it is now a contractual obligation that all vampires are called Edward – the son of mad CEO Charles Bromsley ( A wide-eyed Neill, dredging up memories of his superlative nutjobbery from In The Mouth Of Madness) a vamp who’s made his money farming the last few humans for their haemoglobin and flogging it to starving undead outside. Unfortunately it isn’t a permanent solution, and when Hawke’s investigations into synthetic blood yeild a cure for Vampiritis, it’s a perfect excuse for lots of running around, a collection of too-good-for-this actors bellowing sub-Tarantino dialogue in an effort to be cool, in between doing slow motion back flips.

If you can ignore the creaking style, there’s some fun to be had here –the fleeting glances at a population hiding out in light-proofed houses as part of a functioning Vampire society deserves way more time, but the whole thing is so carried away with making loud noises and begging for a series of never-ending, Underworld-esque sequels that it never really gets going, the resolution feeling like an afterthought rather than the promised final battle.

Overall this looks and feels like a TV show, with non regional-specific US accents and Australian cities. It might have a lot of bang, but definitely lacks bite.

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s version of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, Let The Right One In, finally limps on to British and American screens…just in time for the DVD release. That said, this is definitely a film that deserves a big screen, and a night-walk home through the park afterwards.

This is stunning, catching the ethereal beauty of a Scandinavian winter and juxtaposing it with the modern, concrete grimness of the cold war. Despite being firmly rooted in the 80s, the film spends a lot of time building an atmosphere that is both timeless and ageless.

Following the struggles of Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), as his new friend, the enigmatic and mournful Eli (a revelatory Lina Leandersson) urges him to fight back against the bullies who torment him. The film is multi-layered, at once brutal and fragile, with stunning, complex performances from the young actors that hint at the emotional depths inherent in adolescence and old age.

At its heart, this is a love story. Vampirism is a tool dusted with disease allegory, rotting both the body and soul of the sufferer. In the novel, Eli’s relationship with her strange ‘keeper’ is more explicitly about pedophilia, here the lines are blurred, his punishment more obscure, and wonderfully creepy because of it. Eli’s home life speaks of untold horrors, bringing a thin strand of Lovecraftian terror to proceedings that never quite leaves.

Likewise, the blood and guts are kept to a minimum, particularly the mesmerising climax. In the hands of a lesser talent, it could have been merely disgusting; here it is transcendent; witty and horrifying.

A literary, verbose and understated film, never flashy in its subtle knowledge of the Vampire’s film and folklore heritage; demands to be seen before it falls victim to an entirely unneeded Hollywood makeover next year.

Things take a turn for the Goth in Oldboy director Park Chan-wook’s latest, as a friendly priest (Song Kang-ho, last seen on Western shores in The Host) volunteers for a vaccine-testing programme (never a good idea) and finds him transformed into a vampire. This being a Korean movie, the bloodsuckers are about as far as you can get from Dracula or Buffy. Instead, our hero finds himself with an enormous sexual appetite and a plague of boils that only fresh blood can keep at bay.

It’s based in part on Emile Zola’s book Therese Raquin, so the initial slow-going is pardonable. Unfortunately, once the key points – adultery, suppressed sexuality – from the book are exhausted, the plot starts to circle pointlessly, devolving into an uneasy mix of infantile jokes and Chan-wook’s trademark visceral violence – but what violence!

Despite the weak narrative, the design and inventive shocks on offer more than make up for it. With some great technical creativity and performances that balance out the goofiness, the film manages to resuscitate some of the creeping dread Asian horror cinema does so well, with some startling imagery that sticks in the mind. Of particular note is actress-model Kim Ok-vin – previously best known for camp musical performances – throwing herself into wild sex scenes and grinning manically, her doll-like features perfectly suited to the role of a soulless killer.

The action scenes are surprisingly understated, even when dealing with supernatural combatants. There is wirework aplenty, but it’s tastefully done and works to enhance without distracting.

While the convoluted and often aimless story points may be off-putting to the more mainstream cinema-goers who came aboard for Oldboy, there’s much to savour here. A slightly slow but ultimately rewarding film, managing the neat trick of containing something for the aesthete and gore-hound alike.