Tonight, I’ve convinced a few Twilight fanatics I know to come with me and see Let the Right One In at my local theatre. It wasn’t particularly hard, they had a vague interest in seeing it in the first place thanks to the universal praise (and rightfully so) the movie has recieved in the U.K. press this month, but also because that Twilight series has brought back a fascination with vampires.

A fascination that for people like me, who was around for the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who saw Near Dark on VHS at an all too early age, who spent many nights wondering about the pscyhology of Lestat the Vampire after Tom Cruise’s amazing performance in Interview with the Vampire.

Man… for a dude who saw The Lost Boys about five times during one horror filled twelve month video binge year in 1997. And that’s not to mention Dracula, I Am Legend, Stephen King’s novels etc, etc. This is nothing new, the vampire genre has taken up just as many horrors of my reading and viewing life as comic book and superhero’s have. 

But even with that, even with the countless number of vampire re-tellings I had seen, Let the Right One In surprised me.

It took turns with this genre that I never expected, told a classic tale in a new way and not since Bela Lugosi looked over poor Renfield’s neck over 75 years ago, had I ever seen the pure animialisitc desire to feed off human blood so convincingly portrayed on screen. 

Tonight will be the third viewing for me with this film but the first on the big screen, with an audience. Most of whom will be unexpecting. I just can’t wait to see my friends faces when the swimming pool scene is unleashed upon them, if you’ve seen it, you of course know what I’m talking about. I won’t be looking at the screen then, I will be looking straight at their anguished, disturbed, delighted, confused and happy faces. What a movie.

I love that they don’t know what they are getting themselves into tonight.