We’re really in the mood to watch Twilight, the movie series based on the books of Stephenie Meyer, about a teenage girl falling in love with a vampire that sparkles in the sun. We’re really in the mood to watch Twilight because, for some reason or another, everyone else seems to be watching it, or talking about it, at least, and our collective nostalgia for the movie franchise that made stars of K-Stew and R-Patz is one of our few sources of unbridled happiness. The memes and fan-made merch are proof of this.
We can thank Netflix for this momentary resurgence. The streaming service recently added the entire series to their catalogue, giving viewers the chance to revisit the movies without having to dig deep into the storage boxes of their teenage bedrooms, past the Nintendo DS and the now vintage Paramore tour ticket stubs, to find the dusty DVD box set. It’s there on your laptop now, practically begging to be watched.
Time is seldom kind to teen movies, and we often find ourselves looking back on them as adults thinking ‘God that was bad’ or some iteration of that take. But Twilight, as we’re learning now, is exempt from this judgement. Because it is timeless and excellent, and cinema peaked during the baseball scene set to Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” and has been on a rapid decline in quality ever since. Romance as a genre has flopped ever since; no match to this toxic and yet, somehow, aspirational love triangle. Heck, even opportunities for child actors have been in the pits since creepy Renesmee arrived in 2012, subsequently stealing all of the work in Hollywood. Her impact.
Twilight is not a mere chapter in cinema history, it defines cinema itself. It contains multitudes. Any stan will know this, but it’s good that any naysayer with a Netflix subscription now has no excuse to think otherwise. With restrictions lifting globally, quelling our anxieties is important. Twilight will take you back to the time when you wanted, oh so badly, to snog the living shit out of a man-werewolf and/or a translucent bloodsucking pensioner with cute hair and bad social skills. Living in the UK right now? Fork(s) that! We’re moving to Washington and living Bella’s fantasy instead.
After all, wouldn’t you want a man whose face looks like it’s been rhinestoned like a Hannah Montana jacket?
Who looks severely constipated whenever you enter a room?
And who’s just undeniably your type on paper, even though you know he’s terrible for/may kill you?
It’s funny, now we’re back in the vice-like grip of Twilight, what we chose to remember and forget about the first time around. Only the true heads can recall Robert Pattinson had written and recorded a song for the original movie’s score — during that iconic era when actors wanted to be taken seriously as true artists and so picked up a guitar and wrote melodramatic ballads. (It’s okay Robert, you’ve redeemed yourself bestie <3). Or maybe it’s the absolutely deranged marketing collabs. Like the fact that the series is an iconic spon con opp for Volvo. That Habbo Hotel made a whole world in honour of the movies. Or that Burger King made an Eclipse clutch bag, as well as Team Edward and Team Jacob crowns — all of which we now really want (plz buy us the whole set).
We are proud to admit that we are simps for the Twilight series once again. Sod the heatwave, find us under our Breaking Dawn blankets watching New Moon on our laptops, wearing our Y2K T-shirts adorned with the iconique Jacob catchphrase: “Bella, where the hell have you been, Loca?!” Come join us!
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