The highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling teen vampire novel, this film introduces cinema audiences to Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the most recent in a long line of reluctant vampires, struggling to control his monstrous thirst while facing the ultimate temptation as he falls in love with human teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).

It’s a modern-day Gothic love story, exploring, through Edward and Bella’s mutual obsession, the perils and excitement of teen love and burgeoning sexual desire. Much like Stoker’s novel can be read as inherently conservative, suffused with sexual imagery while at the same time culminating in its repression and containment, Meyer’s narrative equally advocates restraint and self-control while inviting young audiences to revel in the excitement of the couple’s foray into the unknown. Vampirism in this film once again becomes a metaphor through which repressed sexual desire — particularly that of its teenage heroine — is temporarily unleashed.