YOU’RE TWELVE, A BIT WEEDY, YOUR PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED, AND YOU’RE BULLIED AT SCHOOL: WHAT YOU REALLY NEED IS A FRIEND WHO’LL MAKE EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT.

In this brilliant Swedish hybrid of vampire picture and rites-of-passage tale, when young Oskar befriends Eli, the girl next door, what seems like the answer to his prayers may also be the stuff of his nightmares. Even Oskar has to admit Eli’s a bit unusual: she only comes out after sundown, sometimes smells a bit strange, and enters his third-floor room through the window. ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ he asks as they nuzzle side-by-side. Eli’s sympathetic, but has to tell him, ‘I’m not a girl.’

A far more sinewy affair than the anodyne undead romance of the recent Twilight, Tomas Alfredson’s film (adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his novel) offers a keen portrayal of that troubling time between childhood and teendom, when loneliness, insecurity and confusion are heightened by a yearning to grow up as fast as possible. For Lina Leandersson’s Eli that’s hardly a possibility, since she’s been twelve for a very long time, and the way the story has her blood-sucking activities impacting on this formative moment for Kare Hedebrant’s androgynous Oskar makes for a movie whose distinctive blend of carnage and compassion position it as a cult classic for the ages. Beautifully poised direction contrasts the antiseptic realm of Swedish social housing with injections of vicious fantasy, all the while tolling the terrifying price to be paid for turning violent thoughts into reality. See it now before Hollywood botches the remake. — Trevor Johnston.