North

Let the Right One In (2008)
directed by Tomas Alfredson
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

What I'd feared would be an all-too taxing allegorical meditation on childhood did a lot more than just try on The Spirit of the Beehive as a vampire story. The kids behave like children, not as much of a surprise with the boy as the girl, who has too many ageless 12-year olds behaving like adults to live down. She does, though, and though she insists she's not a girl, she is. As with any great vampire movie, this one has nice takes on the classic tropes - namely, the need to invite a vampire into your home each time the beast comes calling (as opposed to once); what happens when a vampire does enter uninvited; and what a roomful of scared animals will do to Nosferatu when they have the numbers to do more than hiss and run away. Nothing comes close to the climax, though, as clean and elegant a sequence of vengeful violence as anything not shot in slow motion can be. The coda, which invites such cynicism about the tender events which came before, seals the deal: one of the best horror movies in years.