Admittedly, the above judgment of the newest installment of the Twilight series, New Moon, is something of a reflection of personal bias.  It wasn’t as bad as the last one, no, but by any basic measure it was still pretty unpleasant.

But as it turns out, I’m not alone.  Did you know that New Moon is currently carrying a quite thoroughly rancid twenty nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes?  The critical community is in polysyllabic loathing for this movie.

So how, dare I ask, is it breaking records?

Easy.

There’s a technique in politics called “rallying the base”.  Basically, it means to pander nonstop to the people most likely to appeal to what you’re standing for in order to win their absolute support.  For the Republicans back in 2008, it meant vaguely racist rallies that featured angry crowd members yelling “Sit down, boy!” to African-American cameramen.

For New Moon, it means a male cast that spends more time shirtless than delivering lines of any quality.

As horror movie producers have discovered for years, blood and naked chicks draw their base of 18-35 year old guys like no tomorrow.  Thus we discover what draws 18-35 year old women–vampire movies with a minimum of blood, ridiculous dialogue and shirtless guys.