I wasn't really allowed to read horror comics when I was a kid in the 1970s. I used to look in the ones my best friend's older brother had, and I was always
ogling them in the supermarket, but I never actually read them.

   nbsp; But one summer afternoon, when I was eight or nine, my aunt dropped by. She had found a copy of the Swedish edition of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula #25 in a bowling alley. She gave it to me, and that book was the first horror comic I actually read - and it made a deep impression on me. The Dracula episode is the one that introduces private eye Hannibal King; a Mike Hammer type gumshoe who has to fight Dracula and a bunch of undead people, and this story, by Marv Wolfman, has a terrific punchline: on the very last page, in the very last panel, hero King is revealed being a vampire himself! Master artist Gene Colan's moody art was perfect for this, and as a little kid, I found the comic scary - for real.

To me, vampires are the ultimate evil beings. All they want is feeding on you. They may seduce you, but only to kill you, drink your blood, or eventually enslave you. Vampires to me aren't any misunderstood, tragic, suffering creatures - they're just plain bad. Evil!

    Therefore, I don't like this new trend with vampire stories aimed at teenage girls; the novels, movies and TV shows that are everywhere now. These stories are most of the time allegories. Vampires represent teenage alienation. And for the most part, the vampires aren't really vampires, authors and movie directors mess with the mythology, and in most cases, what we have are sad humans with fangs and superpowers. And young girls love them. Vampires are sexy. It's cool to be a vampire. And I - an adult man and a long time horror fan - don't get it.

    When TWILIGHT opened in theatres last year, I had no idea what it was. I hadn't heard of the books, which is kind of strange, since the books were a world wide phenomena before the movie. Sure, the target audience are teenage girls, but at least I should have heard of them.

    Anyway, I didn't know what to expect when I went to the press screening of TWILIGHT, and what I got was a pretty lame, uninspired teen flick about a lonely girl who falls in love with a strange guy who turns out to be a nice vampire who doesn't kill humans. Despite being very weak movie-wise, TWILIGHT was a big hit and made stars of the young leads Kristen Stewart and especially the very strange looking Robert Pattinson - I remember the audience laughing out loud at the press screening when Pattinson's character Edward Cullen made his entrance. What the hell, is he supposed to look like that?!

    The sequel NEW MOON is the most anticipated movie of 2009 - or ever. As a matter of fact, it's broken STAR WARS EPISODE 3's record; kids have been asking for and pre-booked tickets to NEW MOON for several months now.

    And now it's here. The girls are ecstatic. Finally! Edward and Bella are back!

    Yup. They're back. And that's pretty much it. I could actually end my review here, since absolutely nothing happens in NEW MOON. It's like a two hour episode of EMMERDALE FARM with vampires and werewolves, and it's a bore fest among bore fests.

    For some reason, Edward decides he can't be with Bella anymore, so he leaves the town along with his nice vampire family. Bella is sad for several months. However, Jake Black - the native American (that's Indian to my European readers) - is in love with Bella, and she doesn't know what to do.

    The evil vampires from the first movie return, but lo and behold: Jake turns out to be a werewolf and protects Bella! Not only that, he too decides to leave her and moves into a cabin in the woods with his all male wolf pack.

    Meanwhile, the sad Edward has travelled to Italy to commit suicide; there's a bunch of old, powerful vampires with mullets who live there and spend their days sitting on thrones, and sometimes Dakota Fanning shows up as a little vampire girl, and these guys have the power to kill other vampires. They're like the jury in American Idol. So Bella travels to Italy, and...

    Yes, I know, I know - I don't belong to this movie's target audience. I'm 25 years too old and a man. But that doesn't matter. The young audience will probably lap this up, but they should really demand something better than this very poorly made film.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON is an insult. It goes on forever; it's 131 minutes and extremely slow moving. Most of the running time consists of poorly written, embarrassing dialogue. There's hardly any action at all and not much of a story. And it's all a bit strange and confusing, since the TWILIGHT mythology is a mess.

    And then we have the wolf pack. Oh, my god, what the hell is that? For some reason that's never explained, the muscular Jake Black begins walking around bare chested, wearing very short jeans, looking kind of like Lou Ferrigno as the incredible Hulk. He's also gotten himself a tattoo (of a pizza?) on his arm. Why? Why does he walk around half naked? Don't ask me! And it's winter! And that's not all - as mentioned, he's moved in with these other guys in a cabin in the woods, and guess what: they all dress like the Hulk! What is this? Jesus, it feels like a tribute to gay icon, artist Tom of Finland! It's insane! I don't know if it's supposed to be funny, but this is hilarious! I laughed my ass off!

    There's more hilarity. There are several scenes where Edward walks towards the camera in slow-motion, and there's one brief flash-forward with Bella and Edward running in the woods in slow-motion. NEW MOON is unbelievably close to being a turkey. It's also deadly serious, there's no attempts at intentional humor (which is kind of funny) besides one scene taking place in a movie theatre, and the CGI werewolves are AWFUL. If you've ever wanted to see a movie in which the Cookie Monster wrestles a vampire, well, here it is!

    I heard that Edward is hardly in the book on which the movie is based. And yes, he leaves rather early on in the movie. But hey, the audience wants to see Robert Pattinson! He must be in the movie! How did the filmmakers solve this problem? Like this: Edward shows up every now and then as a ghost - yes, he's like Obi-wan Kenobi.

    TWILIGHT was pretty bad but watchable. NEW MOON is awful. The only thing I liked in it, was Billy Burke as Bella's dad. Especially since he has a moustache.

    But I guess it doesn't matter what I write here. NEW MOON is going to slaughter the competition at the box office and break records. The audience wants to look at pretty boys for two hours. It doesn't matter if the boys don't have anything to do in the movie.

    I hated NEW MOON.