Book burnings, indeed!
I agree, this is definitely mental illness. Luckily in this case, he had no "teeth" so the victim escaped unharmed. (Boxer shorts? Hissing and growling?) The other victims several yrs ago, who had their throats slashed, mental illness and murder, either way, warranting that the killer be locked up for life.
I agree, that young people are drawn to the Twilight series and to the vampire genre because they feel like outsiders. In that regard, it's sort of a stage they go through. Poor Anne Rice. Her novels really fed into the "new" stories, and she gets blamed for this. She actually had a basis for good and evil and deep character sketches.
I'm sure some of you have seen the trailers for the new movie coming out. Rapid-sequence camera shots, overdone set design, ugh. No think-piece, for sure.