'Twilight' vampire fans show up for movie debut

Wearing homemade T-shirts that said "Team Edward," Elizabeth Menke, 18, and Lauren Solinger, 17, made clear their allegiance to the vampire hero of the movie "Twilight."

Still, they understood even Hollywood could not perfectly capture the vampire character from the novel, whose physical beauty is repeatedly, and floridly, extolled.

"Realistically, there's no one that's that good looking," Solinger said. "But they did a good job."

She was encouraged by Menke, who went to the midnight showing and concluded it was everthing she had hoped it would be "and more."

"It makes me even more excited to see it," Solinger said, while waiting in line to purchase her ticket at the Galaxy Fandango Theater in Carson City on Friday.

The highly anticipated film of the first in the four-book "Twighlight" series hit theaters Friday. The books, written by Stephenie Meyer, chronicle the life of 17-year-old Bella Swan, whose love of Edward Cullen is complicated by the fact that he's a vampire.

The series was an instant hit with teen girls.

According to a Reuters article, "Twighlight" publicist Elizabeth Eulberg said book sales had spiked in recent weeks and worldwide sales of the four books in the series now top 25 million. They've been printed in 37 languages including Vietnamese, Chinese, Croatian and Latvian.

For the past two weeks, the four books " "Twilight," "New Moon," "Eclipse" and "Breaking Dawn" " have held the top four spots on USA Today's bestseller list.

Its success has been compared to that of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series.

But the appeal isn't limited to teen-age girls.

Linda Kijanka and her two girlfriends, all in their 50s, also attended a Friday showing in Carson City.

"We heard all the kids were ditching school to see it," Anita Matthews laughed.

But Kijanka had a more serious reason for wanting to see it.

"Vampires are sexy," she said.

Lest it be written off as a chick flick, Severin Nobriga and Bryan Permann, both 20, saw the movie together.

"I saw a trailer last night and it said it was half chick flick but half fantasy thriller," Nobriga reasoned. "It looked really good."

And the movie came highly recommended to Permann.

"My sister read all the books and she raves and rants about them."

- Contact reporter Teri Vance at tvance@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1272.