Natalie

You needn't read Twilight, Stephenie Meyer's best seller, to know where its secret pulses reside. Just see the movie version and listen to the reactions of the girls in the theater. There's an audible shiver as they first spy the teen vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), his impossibly gorgeous face caked in a mime's pallor, sitting in biology class next to young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). When he holds an apple in his hands to present to her -- the novel's cover image -- the girls emit an awestruck sigh, as if they'd just seen Zac Efron in the flesh or a puppy on YouTube. And when he tells Bella, "So the lion fell in love with the lamb," you hear applause, the imprimatur of Meyer's young connoisseurs. To judge from a preview screening, Twilight the movie is their dream of the book projected 30 feet high.