I'm a 42 year old father who took his 12 year old daughter to see this film. I'm obviously not the target audience, nor have I read the books, but I think a film should be able to stand on its own. My daughter enjoyed it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over the age of 16. There were just too many lingering camera shots of teenage angst and attempts to portray tortured souls (which inevitably ended up looking like nausea). It's the first time I've seen a vampire movie that I felt neither afraid of nor sympathetic towards the vampires.