When did Vampires become such pussies? - By Heather Harrison

Heather Harrison is a
contributor to "The Skewed
Review." This is her first
of hopefully many snarky
articles to be published
on our humble website.
Got feedback for Heather?
You can email her at
heather@theskewedreview.com,
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THE SKEWED REVIEW -- OK, OK. The “Twilight” saga is almost (and finally) done with right? Well then, no time like the present to finally give my long overdue rant about these sparkly tween “monsters.”

No, I’m not talking about Justin Beiber or Lady Gaga. I’m talking about an obsession so absurd, so consuming, that we are all touched by it in some way. That’s right, ladies and gents, I’m talking about the sparkly wonder itself: “Twilight.”

Can we say, “enough is enough” to that one?  

For any of you who have lived under a rock, or, you know, in space for the past 3-4 years, “Twilight” is the Stephanie Meyer “vampire” book series-turned-movie craze that has all the little sparkle-ridden tweens running for the area of Forks, Wash.

I say “vampire” because I’d like to make one thing clear: Vampires don’t sparkle.

Vampires seduce and kill humans by ripping into whatever vein they choose and bleeding their human prey dry. Yeah. Human prey.

Sure, some vampires choose to eat animals, but not an entire brood! Brood is a great way to describe the throngs and throngs of Twi-hards that storm every movie theater and distributor at least twice for every new entrance into the saga.

I want to give you an idea of what we are dealing with here, so let’s compare these media atrocities to something a little more standard: Zombies.

When you compare the zombie hype to the “team Edward or team Jacob” nonsense, zombies are pale by comparison. To illustrate my point I’ve done some math for you (now if only I could put this much effort into some real math).

The “Twilight” saga has four movies released so far that I was able to find box office information on from 2008 up to this month. Among these 4 movies, the gross opening weekend total in the USA, according to IMDB.com and boxofficemojo.com, was $419,132,978. That is an average of $104,783,244.50 per movie.

The totals for zombie movies were a little bit harder to come by, however. I endured through the pages upon pages of zombie movies released from 2008 until now to bring to you the most accurate numbers I can find from movies actually released in theaters.

According to IMDB.com, USA zombie opening weekend totals ran about $136,226,264 between the seven major zombie movies I found listed in that time frame. Average that out and you come up with a total of about $19,460,895 per movie. For those who just don’t want to complete the math on your own, that is roughly an $85,322,349 difference. Like I said—these are just estimates.

“Heather, why do you have such a vendetta against ‘Twilight?’”

I grew up on the vicious vampire world of Lestat and Louis where, though still full of turmoil, they were strong and violent, as vampires have always been—not sparkly and able to maneuver in the daylight.

 That wasn’t too violent for me when I was a teenager, and it wasn’t too graphic. It was plain old scary fantasy to me. So my point in all of this, if I may hop up on my soapbox momentarily, is simple: Vampires just aren’t what they used to be because teens aren’t what they used to be.

I understand that times change and opinions change, and maybe I’m getting too far into the “back in my day” mindset for this topic, but, come on! Vampires are an age-old legend, and in my opinion the “Twilight” saga just kind of took that and ran it right off the proverbial track.

In all fairness, I will give credit where credit is due; Stephanie Meyer is brilliant for marketing toward today’s teens. But for derailing the very thing I grew up on, I give Stephanie Meyer 5 out of 5 sparkles and a rainy day in good ol’ Forks in Washington state!

Why Can't I Find Any Braaaaaaaains? - By Matty Jacobson

THE SKEWED REVIEW -- Someone has to put his foot down and say “enough is enough,” and that someone is me.

According to the Oct. 25, 2011 “Business Insider” article titled “Zombies Are Worth Over $5 Billion To The American Economy,” zombies are, as the article title clearly states, quite lucrative for the United Sates.

Now I’m all for making money, but can’t we find another way to do it? I’m about four flesh-eating shuffles away from creating an Occupy Zombieland movement.

And yes, an Occupy Zombieland would have just as much (if not more so) direction than Occupy Wall Street. To all those occupiers out there, I’m rating you with five and a half doses of common sense, as well as an order for each of you to write me an email consisting of just one paragraph on what your goal is.

I’ll be able to get through them all. Besides, even if I get millions of emails, the protestors will probably still be in their tents waiting for, well, who knows what.

Despite the funds being processed by brain-slurping corpses, I have to stand up and protest. I’m not the walking dead, so why do I feel like I’m getting zombie flesh shoved down my throat every where I go?

Please don’t write me a letter. I know zombies don’t eat other zombies.

And if you immediately thought: “Well, he’s misinformed. Zombies only eat the living,” then you, my friend, are part of the problem. It’s that kind of knee-jerk reaction to the zombie culture that’s got me calling for people to utilize their brains for more than just a snack. I think we all need to learn how to survive the zombie apocalypse apocalypse. Follow these three guidelines and you just might make it until we find the cure.

Don’t be a zombie when it comes to zombies!

You know you’re up against a real epidemic when the Center for Disease Control gets involved. It’s no secret that the CDC, in an effort to utilize the zombie craze in order to educate people, released a tip sheet on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The zombie task force tip sheet can be found at www.cdcfoundation.org/zombies.

Actually, the tip sheet is just the same old tip sheet for every other emergency. It’s just headed up with a preamble stating: “There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen?”

The CDC gets a rating of two out of two hands washed on every human being in the nation for one whole year because they attempted to educate in an entertaining way.

But I guess the CDC officials assumed, as did I, that people were smart enough to know there wasn’t an actual zombie apocalypse on the horizon. I actually had someone tell me that zombies were a real threat because the CDC released a report on them.

Really? If you find you’re actually believing zombies are a real thing, then I can only assume you’re going to be safe if an apocalypse happens. Why? Because zombies want brains.

Stop encouraging them!

Look, when you start throwing your money at a product, and it doesn’t really evolve that much, then I would suggest you start throwing your money elsewhere. We’re not all shelling out half a grand for an iPhone 1, are we? So why do we keep a genre going that’s more or less dead people roaming around eating live people?

As much as I hate vampires, I at least have to give it to all the people who keep reimagining the concept. But there’s no amount of sunlight that’ll make a zombie’s skin sparkle. When all is said and done, zombies are little more than hungry, infectious animals.

And I’ve yet to read or watch a zombie story that isn’t about the 1 percent of survivors trying to stay alive against the 99 percent of zombies.

Oh snap. I wonder if that’s how the Wall Street people see it?

If you find the same thing entertaining, even when repeated over and over, then I guess I just have sympathy for you. There’s not a Skewed Review in the world that could possibly represent how sad I am you’re that easily entertained.

If you’re going to continue supporting the zombie movement, at least demand something different, which brings us to the last guideline.

Broaden your horizons!

Don’t get so stuck on one thing that you can’t see other things for their value. I’m a prime example for this because my heroine is Lady Gaga. Sometimes I have such tunnel vision for her beautiful ugliness that I fail to see or hear anything else.

And trust me when I say when I bring up Gaga, people start to roll their eyes and turn off their ears. Guess what? The rest of us are doing that to those of you obsessed with zombies.

I’m not telling you to stop liking “Night of the Living Dead,” or “Zombieland,” but I am telling you there’s more to life than just soulless monsters craving flesh. I guess that could be applied to “The Jersey Shore,” too. But I digress.

If you can’t let at least some other form of entertainment into your repertoire, then I guess I have a rating for you: You get the next six months of your life surrounded by six people with six different fanaticisms. Each person’s crazy obsession will be different, but they’ll all be something you don’t find interesting at all.

And none of these people will shut up about what they’re crazy for.

So hopefully this craze will die down enough for me to breathe a little, or I hope it will at least stop affecting the intellectually challenged.

Are you ready to tell me why I’m wrong? Or do you have a good alternative to the zombie craze? Let everyone know by following The Skewed Review on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and “like” The Skewed Review on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview.