Letter from the Editors: Why You’ll Never See Twilight Coverage on BrutalAsHell.com
by Marc Patterson, Owner and Managing Editor, and Britt Hayes, Editor
Twilight… sparkly vampires, a super hunky cast, and an automatic blockbuster before opening day… So where to even begin on this film that has so widely infected the horror community that even Fangoria gave up a recent cover to this franchise? If you haven’t noticed yet, we don’t cover Twilight here at Brutal As Hell. That means no news, no reviews, no coverage… ever… period. I don’t care about Robert Pattinson’s latest hairstyle or the real life exploits of Ashley Greene. In the words of Austin Powers, it’s not my bag baby.
I guess the first thing to lay down up front before we go any further is that this article is NOT us bashing on Twilight. I have no interest in taking that path. I’m content to stick to the high road. And yes, I realize the subtle irony in posting an article on why we don’t post articles on this freak phenomenon. Believe me, Twilight is just the dog upon which we make an example of. There are plenty of other films out there that deserve this same treatment. Hell, at least half the horror remakes deserve to be banned from our site as well. Don’t worry… we’re making a list.
On the subject of Twilight itself – quite frankly, I’ve seen Twilight and I don’t think it’s complete crap. It’s not my cup o’ tea, and I didn’t particularly care for it overall, but that doesn’t make it a bad film. (Of course Britt might beg to differ). Oddly, my eleven year old daughter greatly enjoyed the film, which isn’t the odd part. The odd part was that she had read the book beforehand and didn’t feel the film was completely accurate to the book, and felt that it glossed over some key points. Pretty insightful from an eleven year old I’d say. And for me, that’s the crux of the matter right there. Twilight is simply not horror. It is a teenaged young adult supernatural romance story with nary a bone of horror to the storyline anywhere at anytime. Suspenseful? Sure. Suspense is an element for any good supernatural story, and a sure way to keep estrogen levels high when the romance is peaking. But it’s not horror. Nor does it have a place on any horror website. But yet, as of today, you’ll be guaranteed to find reviews for it at just about every major horror website. A few months ago when I questioned an administrator at one rather well known horror site about a particular piece they published regarding Twilight, the response I got was “We don’t discriminate”. Guys… with all due respect, I really like you, but maybe you should. But hey, I get it. Twilight generates huge traffic and traffic pays the bills. For the print guys? The publishing industry is struggling. I know this reality all too well as my day job (and you thought I lived the charmed life) is working in a marketing department serving some of the most well known publishing titles on the newsstand. The harsh reality of this down economy and the rising power of the internet and social networking sites are crushing the publishing business. So why not drop one of those cute werewolves on your magazine cover and catch a rise from single copy sales? It sure makes sense from a business perspective. But in reality, it doesn’t.
The audience for Twilight is an audience of pre-teen and adolescent females. I’ll stop picking on our fellow brothers in horror for a minute and put the focus on ourselves. The audience for a site called “Brutal As Hell”… well let’s just say we’re an 18 plus kinda site. Sure, we keep within the terms of agreement with our service provider, but by all means the material we cover is very much adult in content. Tween girls have no place on this site. Tween girls have no place on most horror sites. Again, we deal in adult subject matter. We deal in all things that go bump in the night. Death, dismemberment, and bloody fucking gore are our bread and butter. Half the films we watch are borderline misogynistic, and I’m sure no parent wants their kid clicking into an article about a rape/revenge film right after they view a clip of some shirtless Jacob. I’ll say it again – a tween girl has NO PLACE on our site and I’m not going to post anything to jack up a few page hits that’s going to bring them here. Think I’m off base? How often do the words horror and porn get put together side by side? (Let’s just say in most Hollywood circles they’re damn near inseparable.) Would you be cool with a kid wandering into a porn shop to rent Twilight because it has romantic overtones and that’s how they justifiably stock their shelf with it? Think I’m being dramatically off base? Think again. And don’t give me your baloney lines about parental control. That used up line is ranted by those without kids and without a clue. But let’s take a second and get past the whole kid issue and get the conversation back on target…
We don’t cover Twilight because we don’t cover tween romance. We’re a horror site that covers horror and we’re fiercely proud of it. Just because your film/tv show/book contains vampires and werewolves doesn’t make you horror. Now without further ado… I drop on you our official FAQ that will flesh out the details regarding our stance on Twilight via my editor – Britt Hayes:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is “Twilight”?
Twilight is a film series based on a series of books by Stephanie Meyers. Ms. Meyers submitted Twilight to the publisher, hoping to have the series sell in an adult market; however, the publisher, noting that Ms. Meyers writes on a 6th grade level (and probably still wears cat pajamas to bed), decided to have her edit out the more “adult” content (i.e.: fucking). The books would obviously sell better in a tween/teen market.
What the fuck is a “tween”?
Tween is taken from the words “in between”, and refers to kiddos that aren’t kids, but aren’t yet teenagers. Basically, their plumbing has started functioning properly, but they’re not quite sure what it’s for yet.
Who is Twilight intended for?
These books are intended for the tween set – the girls who are trying to distance themselves from Miley Cyrus by looking into utensils for DYI wrist-cutting and how to replace feelings with food. These are the girls (and a few boys) who will spend a good portion of their high school years dressed in black, copying lyrics down on their binders, and drawing teardrops under their eyes with cheap Kohl eyeliner. I’m sure there are a few kids out there (take Marc’s daughter for instance) who read the books, and watch the movies, but have a rational outlook on the phenomenon. Those children are fucking geniuses and should be nurtured because some day, they will stop the eyeliner kids from letting the terrorists win. The Twilight films may also be intended for: cat ladies longing to fill a void, gay men (not hatin’), overweight women with Hot Topic addictions due to their inability to evolve their fashion sense past high school (where they probably peaked), anyone with an IQ deficit, and slutty LA Ink fans.
What is Twilight about?
It’s about this girl named Bella, who has too many feelings and “issues”, and is cursed with permanent stink face. She goes to school with vampires and werewolves…you know, just your usual mythological creature clique-ish atmosphere. She falls in love with a vampire named Edward, whose pale skin sparkles in the sunlight. Oh, and these vampires can go in the sun; in fact, the sun makes them prettier and more glittery (and also draws in drag queens like moths to a porch light). These vampires also do not have fangs. So what makes them vampires? They will suck out your will to live and leave you a hollow, empty shell of the human being you once were. There’s also this werewolf named Jacob who is part of the “wolf pack” – a group of werewolves named after a wrestling team from the 90′s. They run around shirtless, so you know that they are attractive. Jacob is in love with Bella and Bella is in love with Edward, and all of these hormones build up but no one ever fucks because 12 year olds look up to Bella, and their mothers need their daughters’ hymens to stay intact, lest they have to explain to them what a penis does. Don’t worry, they’ll find out in a couple of years when they fuck a guy named Raven who smokes cloves with them in the back of a van he uses for “band practice”. That’s when they’ll also learn about the fine art of male manicures in relation to Goth culture.
Why won’t Brutal as Hell cover Twilight?
I’m glad you asked because no one ever asks, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s a point to my existence at all. Brutal as Hell is what we here, in the business, call a “horror” site. That means that we talk about horror-related things: movies, news, comic books, video games, interviews, foxy ladies who have unhealthy (but oh so right) obsessions with latex and makeup effects (they may not be able to spell properly, but bless their little hearts, don’t they look smart?), and even cooking! Ms. Natalie Slater will teach you how to bake muffins with awesome horror-related names that you can enjoy while watching movies we review for you. So, you might be asking now: “If Twilight has vampires and werewolves, that sure sounds like horror to me. Why don’t you talk about it?” Because Twilight isn’t horror. “But you often cover things that aren’t horror.” Yes, we do, but those entities have some of the same sensibilities we look upon lovingly. We cover horror comedies, action thrillers, psychological films, animated films, et al. because those films share common threads with horror. Horror has become such a broad genre that it now envelops what the cool indie kids in film school call “sub genres”, which means more and more films share those sensibilities (make-up effects, tension, mystery, suspense, brutality, etc.), and we can cover more and more films. But where does that leave Team WhoGivesAFuck and the Twilight kids? Twilight is like Harlequin romance for pre-teens, minus the sex. There is nothing horrific about those films, save for their existence.
But if we’re getting serious here, Twilight falls more in the romance category. There may be vampires and werewolves, but they are mostly protagonists (yes, I’m aware there are antagonist factions within…including a shameful Michael Sheen looking like a clothes whore version of Count Chocula with a closet anal fetish). Even the antagonist elements of Twilight do not fall under the horror umbrella. I suppose the special effects used may be pertinent to the landscape of film as a whole, but those effects are nothing new, nor or are they innovative, thus they do nothing to serve film, much less horror, in an evolutionary sense. Twilight is the cinematic equivalent of a Hostess Sno Ball: 
it’s fluffy and oddly adorable and obese females masturbate to it, but it’s deceptively light, it isn’t filling, and leaves you wanting something real to consume, preferably with protein. There is absolutely nothing about Twilight that necessitates our coverage. Many horror sites cover it for the added hits, and if that’s how they want to run things, that’s their business. But the honest truth is that Twilight simply isn’t horror, and we are a horror site. Those are the facts.
Britt, why do you hate Twilight?
Many reasons:
1. The story is awful.
2. The films aren’t even inspired enough in art direction or cinematography to make up for the shitty acting and tepid plot.
3. In what world do vampires sparkle? Oh, that’s right, in my sister’s room when she was 3.
4. The films are two hours of Kristen Stewart and her one facial expression (disgusted confusion) pining over a man who fucking sparkles and is centuries older than her, while a shirtless werewolf tries to make out with her. I’ve seen better plot lines in porn.
5. THIS.
