Bauhaus Singer Pops Up in 'Twilight' Movie

You're the director of a tween girl-targeted, vampire-themed movie series. You're looking for someone with a bring a bit of authentic gothic gravitas to the wildly successful but lightweight franchise. Who do you turn to considering, as someone once pointed out, Bela Lugosi is dead?

In a move apparently intended to unite the current crop of pre-adolescent, vampire-obsessed neophytes with their cider-swilling, blouse-sporting, black-draped 1980s forebears, the makers of the 'Twilight' films have tapped ex-Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy for a cameo in the latest installment of their celibate-undead chronicle. Murphy plays a character called The Cold One in a origin-story flashback during the newly released 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.'

Northampton-based Bauhaus formed in the late '70s and released four albums before splitting in 1983. The gloomy, black-clad troupe's nine-minute 1979 debut single 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' is considered by many to be the goth scene's founding text.

"Who else could have and should have done it?," Murphy told the BBC of his 'Twilight' appearance. "It was really lovely and smart of [director] David Slade to ask me... I was honoured."

"I just can't think of a better first ever vampire than Peter Murphy," Slade explained of his casting choice, adding, in a shout out to the lyrics of Bauhaus's most famous tune, "He's the original undead, undead, undead."

'Eclipse' is out now. Murphys latest solo album is due for release in the autumn.