It's been called the new Harry Potter — and indeed stars British teen heart-throb Robert Pattinson, who played Cedric in two of the franchise. It has been accused of (and praised for) promoting sexual abstinence. It has taken $185 million (and counting) at the US box office. Twilight, a fantasy romance involving a self-loathing vampire and his sweet-blooded soul mate, is the kind of movie that gets pop culture addicts excited. Surrender to its daftness and you’ll emerge covered in something very like a cold sweat.

Director Catherine Hardwicke has stayed almost entirely true to Stephenie Meyer’s novel (the first of a four-part series). Twilight the book is a gushy, candid account of falling in love with — and being loved by — a boy who is out of your league. Klutzy Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has just started high school in a tiny, Pacific Northwest town, and can’t believe it when gorgeous lab partner Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) shows an interest in her. Even when she’s realised he’s a vampire and longs to eat her up, all she can wail is: “You’re so beautiful!”

Bella adores her lonely single dad and recently remarried, on-the-road mum (Billy Burke and Sarah Clarke, both excellent) but it’s the brooding, angelically diabolical Edward who floats her boat. This self-described “monster” plays Debussy on the piano, appreciates nature, is jealous and protective and, to top it all, drives a fast car. No wonder Bella, far from being repulsed, is keen to go all the way.

It’s Edward who says no: if he “loses control” in her presence, she’ll be done for. And if he turns her into a vampire so they can be together for ever, she’s doomed to a life of unquenchable thirst. In one of many savvy one-liners, Edward compares non-human blood to tofu: “It keeps you strong but you’re never [pause] fully satisfied”.

The chemistry between the two leads is impressive. Stewart has a petulant presence — she looks like Lisa-Marie Presley; undernourished yet spoilt. And Pattinson allows us to believe that such a creature might hold enormous appeal.
It’s Meyer’s religious beliefs — she’s a Mormon — that have encouraged the idea that Twilight is about the joys of waiting. Compare Twilight to High School Musical 3, however (both are set in and around prom night), and you realise the difference of the terrain. In the Disney universe, kissing and sex have no connection: true love apparently comes with zero frustration. Bella and Edward, by contrast, are in a permanent pre-coital froth.

Director Hardwicke made her name with Thirteen, a low-budget, jumpily hand-held film about a young girl’s rebellious (and unpunished) exploration of sex and drugs. Twilight — albeit slyly — shares that film’s liberal mindset. The act of consummation may be especially problematic here but the need for jolting, and even self-destructive, sensation is a given.

Teenage audiences will almost certainly identify with Bella and swoon over Edward. So will more than a few old timers — though they may choose to do so in secret.

Twilight doesn’t have the production values or kudos of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or The Dark Knight — respectable fantasies for kids of all ages. And it spends too much time being serious and/or amateurishly goofy (enough with the slo-mo!) to qualify as a cross-over teen comedy, à la American Pie.

What it does have — for viewers of a certain age — is rain, hair gel and a weirdly Eighties vibe. With his bouffant hair and weather-resistant clothing, Edward resembles Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch.

Sweet, sticky, flagrantly hormonal, Twilight is that rare thing, a bona fide guilty pleasure. Will I be able to resist the sequel? God damn my soul to hell, I suspect not.
Opens December 19