Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Jeremy Irons, and Alice Englert. Rated 18A.

Beautiful Creatures is such a strange witches’ brew of digital effects, southern gothic, and supernatural teen romance that it’s hard to see it appealing to anyone other than Twihards suffering severe withdrawal symptoms.

Like the Twilight saga, Beautiful Creatures hails from teen lit (Caster Chronicles). It tells the story of Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a small-town kid who has a recurring dream about a girl with long, dark hair—and who then meets her as he starts his final year of high school. Lena (Alice Englert) is the new girl who lives in a decrepit swamp mansion. He soon finds out she’s a “caster” with magic powers, and at her upcoming 16th birthday she’ll soon be claimed by “light or dark”.

This supernatural trash carries an inexplicable pedigree: Jeremy Irons decks out in brocade suits as Lena’s eccentric uncle Macon, while Emma Thompson hams it up as an almost sinisterly cheery church lady. Young actors Ehrenreich and Englert hold their own, too, with him (as Lena rightly puts it) drooling charm, and Englert with enough broodiness and offbeat geek smoulder to ensure she’ll be a star.

Unfortunately, all of these capable actors find themselves in a film that can’t quite decide what it wants to be. One minute it’s all Spanish moss and wry southern humour; the next it’s The Cell–like special effects with lightning bolts and freaky flashing eyes. The portrayal of the book-banning Bible-belt town is laughably broad, especially at the school, where the “good girls” shame Lena for being a Satanist. And let’s not even get into all the hocus-pocus about Civil War curses and underground occult libraries.

In the end, Beautiful Creatures feels bland despite its eccentricities—think Twilight without the fangs.