Let the Right One In, based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, defies easy classification. There’s nothing remotely predictable about it, which is why, though the story focuses on a girl vampire, I hesitate to label it a genre film. This Swedish movie breaks the genre’s conventions and is truly in a class all its own.

As the snow falls gently against an inky-black sky, a boy stares out the window of his apartment building onto the courtyard below. Somewhere in the distance, a man and a young girl drive along the streets of the city, the tires crunching in the snow—their destination, that same apartment building. And so, just like the witch in Shakespeare’s Macbeth predicts, “. . . something wicked this way comes.”

There has been a rash of grisly murders in town, and the police are stumped. Meanwhile, Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a lonely and introverted 12 year-old boy, has some problems of his own. His parents are divorced and he clearly adores his father, whom he doesn’t see often enough. But his biggest problem is a nasty classmate Conny and his reluctant toadies who bully him every day at school. “Squeal, squeal like a pig!” Conny cruelly commands Oskar.

Oscar yearns for revenge against his tormenters. One night, he goes out into the snow-covered courtyard, and brandishing a knife, rehearses the way he would retaliate against Conny and his followers, if he could. He turns to find he’s being watched by a mysterious, dark haired girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson), who turns out to be Oskar’s new next-door neighbor. Eli tells Oskar, “I can’t be your friend.” Regardless, the two strike up an unlikely and unusual friendship, two lonely children seeking love and connection. Eli even helps Oskar learn to fight back.

Eli’s adult companion, the equally mysterious Håkan (Per Ragnar), is disturbed by her budding relationship with Oskar, and warns her against seeing him.  Their survival depends on anonymity, and Oskar represents a threat in more ways that one. He can identify them, but even more critically, he is a constant temptation to Eli and might wind up her next meal. However, fear of discovery isn’t Håkan’s only objection to Oskar’s presence. By the end of the film, it becomes clear just what that objection is all about and what Håkan’s real relationship is to Eli.

Hedebrant and Leandersson create in their respective characters, Oskar and Eli, two outsiders whose relationship appears incredibly straightforward and naturalistic. You won’t find the artifice and manufactured gestures of friendship so often seen in American films. Their interactions are unaffected and true, making their love and affection for one another so palpable and touching and their highly unusual situation -- a human befriending a vampire -- seem credible. Leadersson is particularly appealing as Eli, the tragically beautiful child with large, soulful eyes whose body houses a much older woman. Eli tells Oskar, “I’m 12. But I’ve been 12 for a long time.” And Leandersson makes you believe it.

Beyond the wonderful performances, the person most responsible for making Let the Right One In a masterpiece is director Tomas Alfredson.  Alfredson and his production design team understand the importance of tone, which is established immediately. From the opening scene of snow falling against a black, starless night onto the ground below where  streetlamps flood it with light, Alfredson creates an atmosphere that's serene and ghostly, quiet and unnerving. We don’t usually associate vampires with wintry landscapes, but the brilliant white, powdery snow, as cold as Eli’s icy cold body, stands in stark contrast to the rich, warm red blood she and Håkan spill in her effort to survive.

Of course, viewers must expect to see blood along with violence -- to one degree or another -- in a vampire movie.  Yes, Alfredson gives us both, but he mitigates their use by practicing a restrained hand and using an artistic eye. He doesn’t succumb to the aesthetic of that fashionable new horror trend, torture porn. Instead he uses the gore judiciously, and creatively. He directed these scenes innovatively, giving the audience just enough of a glimpse and then concealing the rest, allowing moviegoers to use their own imaginations. These scenes become all the more horrifying because of Alfredson’s choices.

I can think of many adjectives one could use to describe vampire/horror movies. The word “beautiful” isn’t one of them. And yet, it’s the word I’ve used, and other people do the same when describing this unusual motion picture. Hauntingly lovely, tender, and eerily sinister, Let the Right One In represents a unique cinematic achievement; and for me, it’s one of the top films of 2008.

(Released by Magnolia Pictures and rated “R” for some bloody violence and disturbing images, brief nudity and language.)

Review also posted at http://www.MovieBuffs.com