Sunday, August 30, 2009, 2:50 PM
Movies, Stop the Presses
By Kevin Moreau

Scary stuff, kids!

Noticing a lot of bloodsuckers, demons and other undead horrors out and about these days? You’re not alone. Judging by upcoming movies like “Jennifer’s Body” and the Atlanta-filmed “Zombieland,” the supernatural has supplanted superhero movies and chick flicks as the hot cinematic trend of the moment.

Most prominent of these properties, of course, is the “Twilight” saga. Teens and adults alike (my wife among them) have connected in a huge way with Stephenie Meyers’ series about the love affair between two star-crossed high school students (one of whom just happens to be a vampire), not despite but because of its supernatural fantasy elements. (Edward Cullen—stuck in a teenager’s body, forced to attend high school for all eternity—certainly reminded me of my own seemingly endless high-school experience.)

This isn’t exactly new. Long before “Twilight” set tween hearts to throbbing, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” deftly employed elements of horror and fantasy to weave an elaborate metaphor for the emotional minefields and physical transformations that make being a teenager so frightening.

 “Vampires are the perfect metaphor for the lost soul,” Anne Rice said in a Time magazine Q&A last year. And HBO’s hit series “True Blood” uses that same prism to explore themes of race, community and sexuality in a far more engrossing manner than, say, “Grey’s Anatomy.”

I’m not suggesting that Hollywood is turning to such stories as a way of helping us deal with our uncertain present. If a lot of today’s entertainment deals with such issues, it’s largely because filmmakers are cashing in on a trend.

But that trend came about for a reason. “Twilight” may be the beneficiary of a very well-executed marketing plan, but none of that would matter if its love story didn’t tap into the breathless melodrama and heightened reality of our teen years, when every romance is larger than life, and every development of every relationship is the most important thing ever.

Who can’t relate to that?

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines “supernatural” as “existing or occurring outside the normal experience or knowledge of man; not explainable by the known forces or laws of nature.” For centuries, artists have manipulated our fear of the unknown to entertain us—and, just maybe, help us make sense of those things we can’t explain.

Besides, compared with those real-world demons who exploit our fears to win political campaigns or manipulate the current health-care “debate,” who wouldn’t rather spend a couple of hours with a soulless vampire?