New Moon opening night: In Israel, it's hard to find much on the film at all.
New Moon opening night is in two weeks in Israel. But signs of a fan base for supernatural tales are few.
Jerusalem
For every rule there is an exception – and in the case of the Twilight series, it's the Israeli fan base. The Hebrew-language fan website www.dimdumim.co.il is full of trivia about the characters, actors, places and cars. But there's no information about where to get the book, if the book even exists in Hebrew. And the website has not been updated since September, although the movie is due to come out in two weeks.
Several commercial book websites in Hebrew have no information about the book.
In an article in the Jewish Journal, the writer observes: "After all, vampire mythology, as Rabbi David Wolpe notes ... is philosophically at odds with Jewish values. And if you ask [screenwriter Melissa]Rosenberg, "The Twilight Saga" in particular is a departure from religion-based vampire lore and instead is an exercise in secular storytelling."
In fact, horror films of any sort rarely get screened here. There's just not much a market for it, apparently. A recent story in Haaretz focused on the director of "Paranormal Activity." He's unsure that Israelis will go and see it, and he notes that Israelis don't go for horror films and have never made one.
"Israelis get enough thrills in daily life - and in their army experience - as to be a bit blase about horror and supernatural films," says David Brinn, senior editor and culture writer for The Jerusalem Post. "They prefer to escape through clubbing and trance music and not focus on the weird and horrible."
Full story: New Moon opening night: From Britain to China, fans are going crazy