by Suzanne Fort

Created on: March 27, 2009   Last Updated: March 29, 2009

Throughout the history of movies with vampires, we mostly see vampires portrayed as these evil, dark, vicious, blood sucking monsters. There have been a few exceptions to that general portrayal of vampires, however. One of the exceptions to that movie portrayal of vampires is the Cullen family in the movie "Twilight".

In the movie "Twilight" we meet Edward Cullen who is this very attractive man. Edward is just like any other high school student. Belle is the woman that starts to notice Edward and his unusual traits. Belle notices that his eyes change color, the whole family doesn't attend school when the sun is shining, his touch is very cold, he's very sensitive to scent, etc. Edward takes her on a flight through the forest and reveals what he looks like in the sunlight. After Belle learns the truth, she is invited over to the Cullen's house for dinner.

When we meet the rest of the Cullen family, they are also very down to earth. The vampires are pretty normal. The vampires are even cooking, which vampires don't normally do because they seek blood. The vampires do seem to pick on the human (Belle)'s scent. Other than that, they appear to be a normal family. Edward Cullen's dad is even a doctor. Although, one thing that was odd is that they were supposedly all foster kids and two of the sets of foster children were dating, but that's a different story.

When Belle was invited to play a game of baseball after the dinner, besides the speedy running and extra hard hit on the ball by the vampires, everything appears normal. Another set of vampires ends up coming to the field. They detect the human (Belle) and appear to go away. One of the other vampires ends up wanting to go after Belle. That man is what we're used to seeing in movies; the evil, revenge-seeking vampire.

The Cullen family (minus one of the foster sisters) are all on board to help Belle be safe. They say she is one of the family, although not by blood and not by being a vampire. This generally happy, magical, helpful family is not the norm in the movies. This is a nice, refreshing change from the usual portrayal of vampires.

In summary, the portrayal of vampires in the movie "Twilight" is mostly that of a normal group of attractive people. The vampires in this movie are mainstream and unless you are very observant, you would not know that they were even vampires. The movie also portrays the evil side of the vampires, like the man who was after Belle, who also sought humans for food.

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