Watch before Viewing Let Me In

Before Let Me In hits Irish cinemas, we take a look at what other vampire movies to sink your teeth into…

30 Days of Night

 

 

The small town of Barrow in Alaska is every lazy vampires dream. Every year, the town is plunged into 30 days of darkness and an enterprising team of vamps are free to pick off the stranded townsfolk at their leisure. This simple premise is lifted out of the ordinary by a healthy dose of gore and stylish direction from Hard Candy director David Slade. Based on a comic mini-series, 30 Days of Night looks fantastic and makes brilliant use of the limited colour palette of the pitch-black night, the blinding white snow and the splatter of red blood. Josh Hartnett is the good guy cop charged with attempting to keep his residents safe from super-vamp Danny Huston and his undead cohorts.

The Lost Boys

 

 

“Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.” That says it all! This one is just plain fun. The cast features Kiefer Sutherland as a punky teen vampire, Jason Patric as the newest reluctant convert, and the two Coreys (Haim and Feldman). Feldman plays one of two wacky brothers (Edgar and Allen) who insist the town is crawling with vampires. They made the phrase “vamp out”
famous.

 

Let the Right One In

 

 

The film which inspired the American re-telling, this beautiful film from Sweden follows two lonely adolescents, one of whom just happens to be a vampire. Like Del Toro, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson reveals sympathy for the monster and a poetic sense of imagery. But he also knows how to deliver the gore…

 

Martin

 

 

George A. Romero sometimes cites this as his favorite film. The original cut of the film was 160 minutes, but that version no longer exists. The bizarre story involves a young boy who believes he’s a vampire, even though he has no fangs and none of a vampire’s powers. But that doesn’t stop him from trying to “suck” the blood from some Pennsylvania housewives. Perversely satiric at times, but also deeply tragic, this is an underrated film and a clever reinvention of the vampire genre.