I’m on honeymoon this week, dear reader, and so unless you want a story about what sightseeing the new Mrs Luxford and I are doing, I wanted to talk about fandom again, but this time the darker side of it. We begin a couple of weeks ago at a screening of the film Riddick (didn’t care for it myself, but that’s another matter). Several professional journos are in a circle, brows furrowed and deep in discussion. The subject? Directioners. One Direction: This Is Us is heading to cinemas, and we’re all a tiny bit concerned – albeit with tongues slightly in our cheeks – about whether to review the film or not. A recent Channel 4 documentary has shown their fans to be quite animated about protecting their beloved fivesome, and will no doubt soon have critics in their crosshairs.

Most of us are men, most of us over 30 (I’m a few weeks off), not exactly the target audience for Niall, Harry, and err… the other ones (as I said, I’m a novice), and so a less-than-five-star review is possible. You might think it funny that professionals should be so cowered by a group largely consisting of teenage girls, but we’ve all had our fandom incidents before. A friend and colleague in this group grimaces and tells the story of the time he gave the first Twilight film a ‘qualified’ four-star review (ie for those who this is aimed for, it’s just the ticket, but stay away if you’re not a fan).

In flooded abuse from Twi-Hards (“how dare you give it less than five – you aren’t qualified to review this etc etc”) and haters of the series (“How can you give such a high rating? Call yourself a journalist …” and so forth). Others I know have received everything from full-on character assassination (“your voice is stupid”) to the simpler, expletive-riddled page comments. Me? I’ve had the odd email about spelling (“It’s Nicolas Cage not Nicholas Cage, IDIOT!!”) and my share of Twilight abuse (“Kristen Stewart’s performance was amazing! How dare you!!!”) but the most passionate came from a Swedish X-Files fan who took issue with my two-star review of the second Mulder and Scully movie. Apparently I should have been ‘ashamed’, that the film ‘wasn’t that bad’ (I found it hilarious that even she couldn’t give it higher praise that that) and demanded that I rewatch the film and review it again (I didn’t). Am I asking you to feel sorry for us? Of course not. Occasional over-enthusiasm is a small price to pay for doing my dream job, and, for the most part, the comments are quite funny, such as the rampant defender of Quantum of Solace who took me to task on twitter.

I decided to review the film in the end, and by the time you read I will have done so in print, online and over the airwaves. If the reaction was bad, I may stay on honeymoon a little longer!