CAN TRUE LOVE CONQUER EVIL?: The local librarian Amma (Viola Davis, left), who is also a seer, shows the young couple Lena (Alice Englert, center) and Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) a display chronicling Lena’s family’s history. It seems that Lena will come into her powers as a witch when she turns 16 and she will have to decide whether to put her powers to use on the side of good or evil.

Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) has lived only in Gatlin, South Carolina, a tiny town whose residents still deny that the South lost the Civil War. The community is so backwards that it has banned books such as To Kill a Mockingbird.

This frustrating state of affairs has left the curious  high school sophomore determined to attend a college far, far away from the Bible Belt. In the meantime, however, he is secretly reading as many of the censored titles that he can get his hands on.

For months Ethan has also been haunted by a recurring nightmare in which he attempts to approach a beautiful ghost, only to die right before reaching her. Consequently, he wakes up in a cold sweat every morning with a crush on an apparition he thinks doesn’t really exist.

However, a new transfer student, who’s the spitting image of the girl of his dreams shows up in Ethan’s class on the first day of the fall semester. Recently orphaned Lena (Alice Englert) has just been taken in by her Uncle Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), head of the wealthy family who founded Gatlin generations ago.

Most of the locals know better than to trespass onto the forbidding Ravenwood Estate, but Ethan is too smitten by Lena to care. It’s not long before he and Lena fall in love, although the beautiful 15-year-old does her best to warn her new beau that she’s more than what she seems to be.

If Ethan had bothered to consult librarian/seer Amma Treadeau (Viola Davis), he’d know that he should steer clear of the entire Ravenwood clan. For, truth be told, they’re “Casters,” meaning otherworldly beings whose supernatural powers appear when they turn 16. With Lena’s 16th birthday rapidly approaching, the question is whether she’ll be a good witch or be drawn to the dark side by her cousin (Emmy Rossum) and late mother (Emma Thompson).

Thus unfolds Beautiful Creatures, a deliciously naughty adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s young adult novel of the same name. Directed by Richard LaGravenese, the picture’s plotline is a bit reminiscent of the vampire/human series Twilight, except with the human and non-human protagonists’ genders switched.

With its talented cast and a compelling script, Beautiful Creatures is bound to be popular with its targeted teen demographic with whom such cross-species romances seem to resonate nowadays.

Very Good (***). Rated PG-13 for violence, sexuality, and scary images. Running time: 118 minutes. Distributor: Warner Brothers.