By Darragh Doiron

The News staff writer



A band of Nederland friends are spray painting T-shirts to wear to “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.” Lauren Alphin, Hallie Clark and Megan Hutchison got tickets way in advance for the Cinemark Tinseltown showing set for just after midnight Thursday. They’re familiar with the books about Bella Swan, an awkward northwest high school student who falls for a vampire. In this story, she learns her best friend is a werewolf, and his pack doesn’t like her boyfriend’s family.

What’s a girl to do? As if high school dating with mere humans wasn’t hard enough … 

Fans, sometimes called “Twi-hards,” come in all ages and have loyal allegiances toward Edward, the cool-skinned vampire or Jacob, the hot-blooded Native American werewolf. Both love Bella and would fight to the death to protect her, but who will she pick? ‘Edward or Jacob?’ is the common fan query.

Movie Theaters around the nation have been sold out for weeks. Katty Villareal of the Dickinson theaters at Central Mall said “New Moon” will show at 12:01 a.m. and “Twilight,” the first movie based the Stephanie Meyer book, will show at 9 p.m. Villareal, by the way, is an Edward fan.

The Nederland girls are old hats at book-to-movie fare.

“We’re pretty big Harry Potter fans,” Alphin, 19, said.

She started reading the Twilight books when a friend gave them to her.

“I think it’s a really fun story to read. It appeals to a lot of people,” the Lamar University sophomore nursing student said.

She said her friends have been following magazine reports on the filming, and hunky stars Robert Pattinson as Edward, Taylor Lautner as Jacob and Kristen Stewart as Bella.

Clark said her friends will be spraying a moon onto their shirts.

“I’m a Jacob fan. I like both of them,” Clark, 19, admitted.

“We’ve been keeping up with that and we’ve got a people magazine full of pictures,” the sophomore communications disorders major said. “I went to see the first movie and thought, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ I’ve got to read the book.’ ”

“Twilight” is a multi-generational thing with mothers and daughters choosing between Jacob and Edward.

“My mom loves it, too,” she said, adding that her mother’s friends are doing the same movie party in Louisiana.

Clark said she’s wondered about just what makes the stories so popular.

“It’s just a kind of cheesy teenage love story, but I don’t know. You just can’t put the book down once you’ve started reading it,” she said.

Megan Hutchinson, 20, agrees.

“It’s a typical forbidden love story and people are really into that, I guess,” the civil engineering sophomore said.

ddoiron@panews.com