The Cure for the Twilight Blues

Today "Twilight 3" comes out.  Oh wait, it isn't "Twilight 3", its "The Twilight Saga*:  Eclipse", right?  You can always tell what kinds of franchises takes themselves way too seriously, just look at the names.  Seriously, try to name a franchise that added the word "Saga" to its name?  Imagine if "James Bond" decided that the next movie should be "The James Bond Saga:  Yesterday Never Lived". Its like demanding that your little split-level house should be called a "manor".  Nothing kills my enthusiasm more than this "Saga" business.

So, I'm not going to see "Twilight 3".  I already said all I needed to say back in my "New Moon" review, which made the best of things by simply not having Edward and Bella interact together.  Do I need to suffer through more of this mutually self-destructive hateful story?  "Twilight 3" has as much chance of being decent as a Limp Bizkit and Michael Bolton duet album with all lyrics in Middle High German.  Even if I were a semi-professional critic whose opinions were trusted, I still wouldn't see this movie - I could go the Armond White route and recycle my "New Moon" review without ever even buying a ticket.  But maybe I just have more self-respect than others.

But I know some of you right now are suffering from the Twilight Blues.  The Twilight Blues is the latest entry to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) with symptoms of depression, suicidal tendencies, and hallucinations of a phantom Jedi Edward all caused by watching a "Twilight" movie without RiffTrax.  There are only two cures:  the endless peace of the grave, and watching a decent vampire flick.  But which one?  Honestly, there are more great vampire works out there than I can count on one hand.  However, there is one cure well above the others that has a 100% guaranteed success rate:  "Hellsing".

"Hellsing" is a Japanese serial manga turned 12-episode anime turned straight-to-DVD episodic series, "Hellsing Ultimate".  It doesn't particularly matter which one of these three versions you use, all that matters is that just a single episode (or volume) of "Hellsing" will make you forget all about shimmering vampires without fangs**.  "Hellsing" doesn't need its vampires to at all conform to our human understandings or morals.  They don't fall in love with pale bitterly unattractive maidens, all they do is go out and kick ass.  And that's all you need.  This is a hardcore, bloody, violent vampire series with Undead Nazis, magic bullets, ghouls, a werewolf, and a badass immortal priest.  It doesn't call itself a "saga", its just "Hellsing".  This is the opposite of "Twilight".  If you were to put a "Hellsing" DVD and put it against a "Twilight" DVD, they would instantly annihilate each other, they're that atomically opposed.

This is the story of Alucard, a gunslinging vampire that works in the service of the Hellsing Organization, a secret service of the British crown and founded by the Abraham Van Helsing from the original "Dracula".  Hellsing's job is to go out and kill off all vampires in the British Isles, using their special superweapon, Alucard himself.  Alucard is such an overpowered creature that he could devour Superman and Link from "The Legend of Zelda" in one bite.  He appears human for most of the time, but when he removes all restriction levels, he becomes a mass of pulsating insanity that drives even the most violent and arrogant vampires to the piss their pants and cry for their Mommies.  And the best part is:  he loves it.  Alucard doesn't just chew your face off, he chews your face off while laughing so hard you think his jaw might just snap his head in two.  The man, no thing, isn't even really a character:  he's a force of nature.  He's Cthulhu the Vampire.  Nothing but pure evil working for the humans just for "fun".

Watching "Twilight" is a lot easier if you just imagine Alucard running around blasting holes in the faces of all the characters that piss you off the most.  Is Edward actually cringing after kissing Bella?  Well, just use the power of imagination and have Alucard appear in the car in them and grow a dog head on his arm and devour them both whole.  (Yes, Alucard can grow dog heads on his arms - he do anything.)

Alucard also has a psuedo-daughter in Seras Victoria, a character that only could have been named in a country where they stupidly put the last names first.  She was a human police offers in the first episode, but then Alucard turned her into a vampire for reasons that aren't exactly clear to anybody.  It was probably a joke on some level.  She starts out trying to cling to her humanity, but over the course of the series has to grow into yet another completely insane killing machine.  She's rather an important character because Alucard is impossible to relate to.  You can marvel at his majesty and terrible power, like a thunderstorm, but you can't really get inside his head.  He's just there.  Seras, or "police girl" as Alucard calls her, is just an avatar for the audience, somebody who knows absolutely nothing about vampires and has to grow into her new species.  She also has huge breasts and wears shirts six sizes too small.

Is there a message here that humanity is a pointless facade of the animal instinct below the surface?  Umm... No.  I don't think that anybody who made "Hellsing" even gave a single thought into the message - all they wanted to do was make it as awesome as possible.  Ten thousand Nazi Vampire airships flying over London will never have a moral message of any kind.  All it is simple pure distilled awesomeness.  Hellsing Brand Awesome in a Can.  It doesn't make sense at times, and Alucard's powers are just ridiculous, but they are scary as Hell.  Its an interesting kind of program where the main hero is many times more frightening than the villains he's fighting.  He isn't just an awesome vampire:  he's the most awesome vampire.

The voice acting is spectacular, in either language.  Crispin Freeman makes Alucard his best role ever.  There is nothing truly like listening to that man's evil laugh.  (I want to bear the children of Crispin Freeman's evil laugh.)  He so awesome at his work that he doesn't even need to attempt an English accent or an Eastern European one, even while every other member of the cast is working to their best potential to copy English, or Irish, or German, or Italian accents.  Tragically the English dub of "Hellsing Ultimate" seems to have completely fallen apart as the production company has gone belly up.  There hasn't been a new episode in over two years, which is just inexcusable.

But other than that, if you're sick of "Twilight" and sad co-dependent relationships, watch "Hellsing".  If your girlfriend dragged you to the theatre, or maybe your little sister made you come with her at the midnight showing*** because the movie is rated PG-13, and now you've come to regret horribly your time in the movie theatre, this is the cure right here.  You'll forget all about those stupid movies.   Final word:  "Twilight" sucks, "Hellsing" rules.

------------------------------------------------
* Even more embarrassing is that the creators of this film franchise and Stephenie Meyers herself seem to have absolutely no idea what a "saga" actually is.  They seem to think its just a series, maybe with a few themes of epic literature.  No that's giving them too much credit, they just thought it sounded cool.  "Saga" is a complex term that can mean a lot of things:  it can be about Icelandic heroes, Norwegian kings, or Germanic myths.  A "saga novel" is a modern literary form styled upon the Norse sagas that tell the story of a large cast of characters, usually a family but really any large segment of society, across a very large dramatic setting, often in several volumes and dealing with several generations.  "Twilight" a series that only has a single POV character, the insufferable Bella, and maybe three characters of consequence, is not even close to being a "saga".  You want a saga novel?  Try "War and Peace".  "Star Wars" is a better saga than this.  Yeah, "Twilight" has several volumes, but so far these movies have no overarching plot to speak of.  Maybe you could argue that they're on some level heroic (doubtful in of itself), but that don't make it a "saga" on any level.

But even if this series were a proper saga, I'd still make fun of it for being so self-aggrandizing as to call itself "Saga".  The only proper response to a creator who calls his or her work a "saga" is the jerk-off motion.

** Yes, "Twilight" vampires do not have fangs.  I never even noticed in the movies because when its a VAMPIRE movies you just kinda assume there will be fangs even if you don't see any.  My mind was so ready to see fangs that I subconsciously filled in sharp points in the vampires' mouths even when in fact, they're just normal teeth.  You know, I'm fine with vampires not being harmed by the Sun, even if the sparkling effect is just stupid and belongs only in bad anime for preteen girls.  I was fine with vampires not being harmed by water, or garlic, or crucifixes, and I didn't really care all that much that the vampire myth was wasted as a stupid abstinence metaphor.  But no fangs?  NO FANGS??  Are you kidding me??  That's the line, right there.  Vampires need fangs.  If there are no fangs, than "Twilight" is by my own personal definition not a vampire movie.  Calling these creatures "vampires" is a cruel lie.

*** No joke, every single movie theatre near by me had a special midnight showing of "Twilight 3" last night.  Usually there's only one midnight showing in maybe one theatre, but this stupid movie managed to grab every single one.  In Staten Island last night there was a movie theatre that had a new show starting every five minutes at 12:01 filling up every screen they had.  (Cries)  ...I'm sorry.  I just love my country, and I fear for it.