It’s back! I don’t kill ideas, I just let them fester and rot away for eons before bringing them back. And hey, maybe they’re interesting the second time around. Right? RIGHT?

Today’s subtitled flick is from Sweden, land of various ores, ABBA and Second World War era Nazi sympathisers. Quite a country.

This is also a bit of a cheat, as it was actually dubbed in English. But so many people have told me what a great movie this is that I’m throwing it in here as well.

This one is a little hard to nail down. It IS definitely a horror movie, but just as much as that it’s a character drama. It’s also about to have a Western version released in theatres…hence the timing of watching the original.

First off, yes, it is a movie largely about a vampire. No, this is not the kind of fairy ass vampire who glitters in the damn sun, or who spends his time sashaying around like the gayest man in the history of movie monsters (I’m looking at you, virtually the entire cast of Interview With a Vampire). This particular vamp is a 12 year old girl, and she and her familiar have just moved in to the apartment next door to one occupied by a desperately lonely 12 year old boy and his family. This is a kid who reads books about crime and forensics for fun…when he’s not at school, being tormented by bullies.

Christ, after watching this movie, I kind of understand Sweden’s fabled status as global suicide champion…every shot in this flick is bleak, cold, and without colour. I kind of want to die, and I don’t even have to live there.

And the characters don’t exactly liven the atmosphere up. The vampire is still too unsure of herself to ‘hunt’ in the beginning, so it’s up to her familiar to gather blood for her. This he does by matter of factly gassing unsuspecting passers by and bleeding them in to jugs like stuck pigs. The little boy pretends to be the self assured person he isn’t, shouting threats at trees as though they’re his tormenters and pulling a knife on them. Hell, he’s such a pathetic figure that even the vamp girl rejects him outright at the beginning.

But they come together with a sort of inevitability. He doesn’t have any meaningful human contact with a single person. She doesn’t want to be what she is. They’re lonely. So they begin to strike up a friendship, despite her clearly being…different. They’re both incredibly awkward, and sweet in a way. Well, as sweet as things can possibly be when one of them is not exactly what she seems. One exchange sort of covers it, as he asks her if she wants to be his girlfriend, and she answers that she isn’t a girl. By this point, she’s started going ‘hunting’ on her own. The innocence of a child is just the right trick to bring meat in closer, and it’s always easier when you have a familiar around to deal with those pesky corpses. Until he gets caught. Since he’s known around the neighbourhood, he decides to do the right thing by her…and melt his own face with acid before he’s caught to avoid recognition. I don’t know if that was listed in the job responsibilities when he took the position, but I hope the benefits package was pretty good to balance that requirement out.

At one point, the bullies ‘prove’ themselves to their little Alpha Male by actually whipping the kid with a small tree branch. She encourages him to stand up for himself and hit them back harder, so he starts off by joining an after school weightlifting program. His confidence begins to grow at pretty much the same rate as her desperation. Both are covered simultaneously when, at the same time as he defends himself, one of the bodies of her victims is found encased in the ice. He starts moving up a bit in the social spectrum, while she is left outside where she can only watch.

I won’t get too in depth about the ending. The bully’s older brother decide it’s time to exact some revenge for the stick assault. She finds out about it. I actually like how this scene was shot…we don’t see every detail, just what’s happening around him under the water in the local pool. And cue the snow, desolation and loneliness. And two companions traveling. Every vampire needs her familiar.

I actually really liked this movie. I’m curious whether the remake follows the same path (early reviews indicate that it might), or if it’s a ‘slashered up’ Western version. At any rate, see this one. What might have just been a simple horror movie about the vampire next door ended up being much more of a character study. And what could have been ruined by bad child actors was saved BECAUSE of their performances…I actually found the adults a lot worse on camera, though some of that likely was the result of dubbing.