Until this week the one thing I knew about the Twilight saga was that it had vampires in it, which was enough to put me off. I didn't realise it was a romantic fantasy aimed at teenage girls. Turns out it's possible to be put off something twice before you've actually seen it.

The central theme, apparently, is abstinence; the heroine, Bella, is contemplating whether she wants to lose her virginity to a vampire or a werewolf. She's not allowed to try them both out, or get to second base with one and third with the other. And she's certainly not allowed to take them both on at once, although that would clearly make for a far better film. Whichever one she picks is the one she's stuck with for ever. In some quarters the films and books are lauded for their wholesome message, which is weird considering Bella is essentially deciding whether she'd rather shag a bat or a wolf. She's got zero interest in honest-to-goodness human-on-human action. No. It's magic farmyard creatures or nothing for her. Oh, and apparently she chooses the bat in the end, which is the worst possible choice, because being a vampire, he's not just any old bat, but one that's hundreds of years old and isn't even properly alive. If the final film doesn't culminate in a 28-minute shot of her lying spread-eagled on the marital bed tearfully rubbing the leathery, disintegrating corpse of a 200-year-old bat against her marital sector, the entire saga has been a cop-out and a lie.

But even if you weren't boycotting the film on the basis of its disgraceful necro-bestiality theme, boycotting it on the basis of its vampires is reason enough. Vampires are the worst monsters ever created, as the following list of the worst monsters ever created, in ascending order of badness and culminating in vampires, will prove:

Mummies. Zombies – mindless human-hating reanimated corpses – are brilliant monsters because their motivation is brutally simple: they're very hungry thick people. Yet mummies – who are effectively zombies in medicinal giftwrap – are laughably non-threatening. Since their teeth are covered up, they're reduced to stumbling around with outstretched arms trying to hug you to death. If they had erections, they'd be scary. But so would Goofy.

Ghosts. At its most ambitious a ghost might appear in your bedroom in the guise of a glowing holographic figure, loudly complaining about the circumstances of its death, particularly if you killed it. But that's the worst a ghost will do: whine about its own misfortune, like someone writing to Watchdog to moan about their broadband provider. And they usually don't even manage that. Instead, they make intermittent knocking sounds or slam the odd door in a huff. I've had neighbours worse than that. In fact there's a guy a few doors down who's been loudly practising the drums every weekend for the past five years with no sign of improvement. I'd gladly swap him for a ghost. Even if it walked through the walls and tried to stop my heart with its gaze every couple of nights it'd still be an improvement.

Serial killers. Real serial killers are genuinely frightening. You wouldn't catch me on a log flume ride with John Reginald Christie. No siree. But fictional serial killers are usually more pretentious than frightening, perpetually quoting Milton or arranging their victims in poses designed to evoke the martyrdom of St Sebastian. What are you, a cold-blooded murderer or the controller of Radio 3? Proper maniacs are too disturbed to complete a Sudoku, let alone conduct an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse with an existentially minded detective. Put your cryptic crossword down and just strangle people. Or don't bother.

Vampires. See? Worst. Vampires are the only monster that's actually grown less brutal and frightening as time has passed. Early vampires were stiff and aloof, with a cold sexual intent which was, at the very least, slightly creepy. Now they've got bloody feelings. They're lonely and tortured and all messed up inside. They spend more time staring at their shoes than killing people. Proper monsters only stare at their shoes when they're stamping on a villager's windpipe.

There is one good film about a meditative, troubled post-modern vampire: Martin, directed by zombie supremo George Romero in 1977. The main character is a disturbed young man who roams Pittsburgh by night, chemically sedating his victims with a syringe before razorblading their wrists and drinking their blood. But that's far too nasty and unsettling to pass muster as a vampire movie in today's wussy world.

No. Contemporary vampires come in two flavours, if you'll forgive the expression. Sexless wimps (Twilight) or smouldering hedonists (True Blood). Morrissey or Michael Hutchence. Both troubled. Both dreamy-eyed frontmen with nice hair. Forgive my pants for remaining unshitten.

It's a humiliating climbdown for a monster originally inspired by Vlad the Impaler, a man who'd happily eat his lunch while watching a skewered peasant slide down an immense wooden spike, being slowly and agonisingly dragged toward the ground by their own kicking, flailing body mass. Vlad would sit among entire forests of screaming human kebabs, chuckling and munching his oxburger or whatever the hell they ate back then.

Confronted with that kind of visceral horror, Robert Pattinson wouldn't make it through his asparagus and shaved parmesan starter. Even if he was only watching it on a 4-inch LCD screen. The pussy.

Twilight? Pisslight, more like.