New Moon

The latest movie in vampire saga Twilight is a deviant moral vacuum, the Vatican said.

New Moon, which opens in Britain today, is a mixture of excesses aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element, a spokesman added.

Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the Pontifical Council of Culture, said: Men and women are transformed with horrible masks and it is once again that age-old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office.

This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern.

The fans of New Moon have won over the Swedish film censors.

On Friday, the same day as the highly anticipated Twilight sequel was to open, the Chamber Court in Stockholm, after an appeal by distrib Nordisk Film, overruled the censor's decision to ban everyone under 15 from seeing the vampire film.

The court decided that the rating was to be lowered to 11, which also means that anyone between the ages of 7 and 11 can see the film if accompanied by an adult.

The previous decision to rate the film 15 caused an uproar among the many Twilight fans, many of whom are under that age.

New Moon is rated as 12A in the UK.