If you hadn’t read the heading, you would’ve said a faerie, right? That’s a hundred-year-old blood-sucking vampire Edward Cullen for y’all!
The Twi-hard Phase
I will be blatantly lying if I say I wasn’t touched by the raging Twilight fever that touched our entire sixth-standard girls in 2010 when Twilight saga: Eclipse came out. As a certified nerd, I read the entire Twilight saga series in a few weeks and watched all the movies (released until then). AND decided that Edward Cullen was the best boyfriend EVER in the Universe.
Yeah, dark times.
For the Uninitiated:
For all of those living under a rock, it is a young adult fantasy novel series. It revolves around a (borderline anemic looking) 17-year-old girl, Isabella Swan (Kristen Stewart). Isabella arrives in the gloomy and wet fictional town of Forks, Washington.
She goes there to live with her father (Billy Burke) after her mother goes on tour with her boyfriend. On arriving, she meets the Cullen clan, who pose as high school students but are actually centuries-old blood-sucking vampires. But they are the good ones; they don’t suck human blood, only animal blood!
There is the surgeon’s father, Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli), mother Esme Cullen (Elizabeth Reaser), very strong son Emmett Cullen (Kellan Lutz), his wife, the gorgeous Rosaline Hale (Nikki Reed), future predicting daughter Alice Cullen (Ashley Green), her beau having the power of controlling moods Jasper Hale (Jackson Rathbone), and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson with his mind-reading abilities whose only blind spot is Bella).
Anyway, Edward and Bella date and Edward leaves to protect Bella when her friend Jacob is in love with her. Edward then returns and Jacob turns into a werewolf (because why not), a pissing contest about who gets the girl. Meanwhile, there were some vampire attacks in the midst.
Edward and Bella then get married and are off on their honeymoon where Bella gets pregnant and, gives birth to a half-human half-vampire baby Renesmee. After that Bella turns into a vampire and, Jacob imprints on Renesmee (meaning Jacob and Renesmee are soulmates now).
So that’s a rollercoaster ride of ridiculousness.
Vampires: A Hollywood Faerie-tale
In defense of an era of preteen teenage girls (and some guys too), let me just say that Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) with that face, Kristen Stewart (Isabella Swan) with her straight hair and book-reading personality (lol), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black) with his CGI muscles were hard to resist for our half-developed brains. But the 5 movie series in the Twilight Saga turned out to be insanely popular and even rivaled the Harry Potter fame.
All the movies turned out to be a super hit, with the series grossing over $3.4 billion worldwide. The fact that the leads Pattinson and Stewart dated in real life for some time stoked the fandom fire. To this date, the fairytale (faerie-tale!) continues as Twilight occupies all five top spots among the most-watched movies on Netflix.
Twilight Movies Were Based on Books?
These romantic films of the fantasy genre were based on the four books written by Stephenie Meyer and were developed as a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg. The first book, Twilight, was directed as a movie by Catherine Hardwicke in 2008.
After it garnered immense popularity among young adult fans and women, the next two sequels, New Moon and Eclipse were directed by Chris Weitz and David Slade. The last book in the Twilight Saga series: Breaking Dawn, was split into two movies by director Bill Condon.
Fun fact: Did you know they roped in names like Rami Malek, Dakota Fanning, and Anna Kendrick as cameos in their cast?
What do Fans Think About Twilight now?
In the upcoming years, I assume, like me, several people grew up and understood how problematic Edward’s controlling and stalking, Bella, and her lack of personality is. Jacob’s lack of boundaries and the forceful kisses. By the time I caught on to the ridiculousness of Twilight, the world had already produced several hilarious parodies of the same!
The listing below is some of the best ones you can check out to get the nostalgia of the last decades.
List of the 8 Twilight Parodies:
1. Vampires Suck
About Vampires Suck:
This American Parody film was directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer in 2010, just after the first two sequels of the series were out. It parodied these two movies along with references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries peppered on it.
Actors Matt Lentor played the role of one Edward Sullen. Jenn Proske played the role of Becca Crane (swan to the crane, geddit?). Remember the infamous cringe-worthy dialogue sequence in the woods where Bella tells Edward that she knows what he is?
It is tweaked here, and Becca says that she knows who Edward is, and he is one of the Jonas Brothers! Lol. There were a few comedy bits, but those were not enough to save the film, which was bashed by the critics and termed unwatchably. In a way, not so different from the critical reviews of its parent material, Twilight, right?
2. Robert Pattinson is Bothered.
About Robert Pattinson is Bothered:
In 2010 the live show host Jimmy Fallon started this segment in his late-night Twilight Parody called Robert Pattinson is Bothered. In those segments, he was making impressions of Edward Cullen in the woods, getting annoyed at mundane stuff like how to use the Tablet, etc. It wasn’t the funniest but watchable.
The hilarious part was when the actor of Edward Cullen, Robert Pattinson, became a part of the sketch for a cameo. Pattinson joked that the segment by Fallon was getting on his nerves and “bothered” him! The audience loved it. A handsome man who can take a joke on himself is always attractive!
3. Twilight High School Musical
About Twilight High School Musical:
Or better known as the TwiGH School Musical! An amalgamation of parodies of the Twilight characters and High school musical characters, this one is a laugh riot. It has students of East High, including Troy Bolton, coming to study in Forks High School because asbestos was found in the former school’s walls.
It has a scene where Troy Bolton breaks into an impromptu song and dance number. And then Jacob looks at Edward and says, “And I thought I hated you”! This crossover was an episode of MAD which aired on Cartoon Network. Season 1, Episode 23: TwiGH School Musical/Avenger Time
4. Firelight
About Firelight:
This one you can find on YouTube, and I strongly recommend you to go and give it a watch. This was a skit made by SNL (Saturday Nights Live) back in 2009. This spoof replaced the vampires with Frankenstein’s monsters called Franks.
It stars famous pop singer Taylor Swift as new student Bella Swan who sits in her high school cafeteria with her friends. She sees a brooding, handsome guy pass by looking at her (played by Andy Samberg), who is clearly supposed to be Edward.
But the twist is that she looks past him and focuses on the zombie-like family of franks with green skin! Bill Hader plays the love interest monster, and the dialogues are equally ridiculous but intentionally funny.
5. Almost Night
About Almost Night:
This book by Jacob Wallace doesn’t hide the fact that it is a parody of the series. Even its cover art is a version of the apple-in-hands twilight poster. The main characters in the book are Stella Mallard. And her mother has given her a potion to make her attractive to boys (and some girls).
There is her childhood friend Bocaj who had grown up to be a bad boy. There is a vampire hunter who is a female satyr. She has already saved her life twice. Last but not least, there is the sexiest Ed Skullin. If you like R-rated jokes and parodies are your thing, definitely go for it.
6. The Hillywood show
About The Hillywood show:
The Hillywood show is a channel on YouTube by the Hindi sisters Hilly and Hannah. It parodies famous movies and series of Hollywood like Supernatural, The Walking Dead, etc. Hannah primarily directs and plays minor roles, and Hilly mainly does the lead roles.
They have done parodies of all the five movies on their YouTube channel. They utilized famous songs from singers like Katy Perry (Hot n’ cold, So What, Thinking of you), Lady Gaga (Marry the Night), Jordin Sparks (Battlefield), PSY (Gangnam Style), etc. The videos are available free of cost on the YouTube platform.
7. Dimlight
This is a twilight parody made by Twilight, ironically, Twihards (die-hard fans of Twilight). This one, again on YouTube, is a total hoot. It was made thirteen years ago by a channel called TwilightKrew.
Dimlight Plot:
It is about a die-hard fan of Twilight trying to live the story in her real life. The delusional main character Devin pretends her office co-workers are characters from Twilight. Especially a cute guy called Tedward, whom she swears is a vampire even though he denies it.
Go watch this three-minute video for the twist at the end!
8. Movies in Minutes – Twilight
About Movies in Minutes – Twilight:
This parody was made in 2009 by a YouTube channel called nigahiga. This parody has garnered over 25 million views. They are famous for making spoofs and parody videos of movies and stuff.
In their Twilight video they have recreated a few Twilight scenes and also added up some fun elements to them to give the audience a laugh. They have also included some bloopers at the end, which makes it even funnier. They have also created a second part to it, which is parody of the New Moon trailer.
Watch this 4-minute video to have a good laugh.
Conclusion:
People say imitation is one of the highest forms of praise. So, parody must come as one of the highest forms of popularity.
To look at the good side, this movie series gave us actors like Pattinson and Stewart, who went on to do some great works. Pattinson was great in The Lighthouse (2019), Nolan’s movie Tenet (2020), the Netflix film Devil All the Time (2020), and the recent Batman movie by DC.
Stewart did a few commercial films like Snow White and the Huntsman series, Charlie’s Angels, Happiest Season (co-star Dan Levy), etc… She then focused on critically acclaimed Indie films like Personal Shopper, Still Alice, and Into The Wild.
