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LOS ANGELES -- Vampire fever is poised to sink its teeth into audiences across North America on Friday as the big-screen adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's best-selling young adult novel "Twilight" hits cinemas.

The eagerly anticipated movie has created a hysteria amongst teenage fans not seen since boy wizard Harry Potter made his Hollywood debut in 2001.

Preview screenings and premieres of "Twilight," based on the first in a series of four books by Meyer launched in 2005, have been marked by crowds of screaming teenage fans desperate to take a bite out of the film's stars.

Midnight screenings of the film are among nearly 2,000 shows across the United States that have been sold out, putting the film on course for a blockbuster opening weekend in North America.

The film revolves around a 17-year-old loner Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who moves from Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington where she falls in love with a vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) at her new high school.

Unlike traditional Hollywood vampire incarnations, the floppy-haired, Byronesque, Cullen refuses to feed on humans on ethical grounds, preferring to drink only the blood of animals -- making him a "vegetarian."

Meyer's novels have spawned an ardent following -- an estimated 17 million readers worldwide -- hooked by the story of forbidden love and their struggle to escape the clutches of evil, rogue vampires.

Those fans have mobbed the film's stars wherever they have appeared in public this week.

British actor Pattinson, 22, whose previous biggest role was a part in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," admits that the level of "Twilight-mania" has surprised him.

"It is a little nuts," said Pattinson after teenagers queued from 6am outside the venue for the Los Angeles premiere of the film this week. "It's been like this for a week now. I’ve gone deaf."

The arrival of "Twilight" is the latest example of the entertainment industry's enduring fascination with vampires, who have come a long way since Bela Lugosi first climbed out of his coffin in 1931's "Dracula."

The film's premiere also coincides with the successful first season of HBO television series "True Blood", a drama set in Louisiana which chronicles the problems of vampires trying to co-exist alongside humans.

According to Eric Nuzum, author of "The Dead Travel Fast," a study of society's lust for vampires, "Twilight" follows in the tradition of other pop-culture tales such as "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," and "The Lost Boys."

"Very rarely are vampire stories about vampires," Nuzum told USA Today.

"They are often about desire, love, forbidden pleasures, forbidden fears that people are too scared or embarrassed to admit. Put it in the guise of a vampire, and you can talk about it.

"They are the perfect metaphor for anything that challenges you or makes you lose control. You create a creature with absolute control."

A reviewer of Salon.com meanwhile says the success of Meyer's novels lies in their ability to tap timeless themes.

"They summon a world in which love is passionate, yet (relatively) chaste, girls need be nothing more than fetchingly vulnerable and masterful men can be depended upon to protect and worship them for it."

Or as Vanity Fair columnist James Wolcott summarized: "'Twilight' is the 'Brideshead Revisited' of the fanged and forever young."