I envy those who have never seen Twilight, because the experience of watching it 18 years after its cinematic release in a crowd full of TwiHards would have been the best introduction. It felt like a no-brainer for Fantastic Film Festival’s weekend-long vampire retrospective. Twilight is one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies, and, love it or hate it, it’s become a cult classic. There’s just something incredibly camp about the main character, who’s basically a wattpad y/n, having to choose between a vampire and a werewolf, overlaid with a blue-grey tint that makes everyone look slightly ill. Getting to see it in a crowd of people who felt the same way was my teenage dream come to life. 

I knew that this would be a ridiculous night, but the audience reaction made everything 10 times funnier, essentially turning the movie into a parody of itself. There were catcalls from girls in the row in front of me when Bella’s dilf-y dad Charlie came on screen, and laughter at every creepy thing Edward did, or every awkward moment Bella had. This undercut a lot of the drama the film was reaching for, but in the process it became something even better than anyone could conceive of. Even the first interaction between Edward and Bella—where he’s gagging at her scent in the biology lab and then very dramatically insists to change to any other class—brought hysterical laughter to the whole cinema. While I’m sure 18 years ago this had teenage girls across the world swooning, for audiences today Edward’s drama became comical in its excessiveness.

During the pivotal scene where Bella confesses her knowledge of Edward’s vampirism, I could hear a girl behind me quoting it line for line, with the exact same intonations as the actors on screen. By the iconic baseball scene though, and for the rest of the third act, the audience leant into the drama as we followed Bella’s travels to Arizona in an effort to protect the Cullens. The audience was silently engaged as we watched her attempt to fight off evil vampire James, but it quickly circled back to being absurd as we watched Edward suck the venom from Bella’s wrist with a sort of orgasmic joy. It came to a close with Edward and Bella slow dancing at the prom, accompanied by crutches and cast, followed by a round of applause and cheering from the audience. On a rainy autumn evening, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than at a Twilight screening, and this felt like the best way to start my annual Twilight rewatch.