Let the Right One In

Touted as the best horror movie of the year, Let the Right One In is a romantic teenage vampire film set in Sweden. Oskar is a bullied 12-year-old living in a Stockholm suburb in the early 1980s. He spends his evening entertaining ideas of a violent revenge on his classmates. Then Eli, a pale vampire girl, moves in next door. After her minder is caught by the police, the friends of a man she killed try to hunt her down.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:Wendy Ide, the Times: Lina Leandersson is mesmerising as Eli - ragged and feral-looking, she manages to convey both a timeless resignation and a gauche naivety when it comes to the world that 12-year-olds in 1982 inhabit. A Rubik's cube is a thing of wonder for her. But for all its languorous pacing, its mordant humour and the unexpectedly sweet-natured approach to the bonds that grow between the two children, Let the Right One In is underscored by an unsettling violence. This is not the kind of vampire film that will have you chewing your nails with suspense, but the dreamlike drift of the narrative makes the blood-letting, when it comes, all the more disquieting. (Verdict: four stars out of five)Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard: Above all, the two children, Kare Hedebrant as Oskar and Lina Leandersson as Eli, are marvellously natural performers who carry a sometimes fractured film from point to point with stunning realism. [Director Thomas] Alfredson's editing style means that, on occasion, he won’t leave his sequences alone to expand naturally, and a certain choppiness results. All the same, he and his team have conjured up, from a remarkable piece of writing, one of the best, most imaginative and resonant vampire stories I’ve seen. (Verdict: four stars out of five)Kim Newman, Empire: In contrast to the currently hot flavours of fear - torture porn, girlie ghosts, kung fu monsters - this is horror, rooted in love... With miraculous performances from the very young lead actors, the film builds up slowly - we're not sure whether the doleful bloodsucker wants the plodding Oskar as a boyfriend, a minion or lunch. (Verdict: five stars out of five) ·