I’m sick of the sensitive ones who really long for love after centuries of ripping out the throats of virgins and who only need to find the right woman to toss aside the past and indulge in some of the most cringingly badly written sex in all of English literature.

I’m sick of the misunderstood teenage vampires who are just rebelling against the man.

I am sick to death of vampires.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that I loved Let The Right One In – a Swedish film featuring, yes, a vampire. It is perhaps my favourite film of the year so far.

Young Oskar is almost invisible – pale and lost – the only people who seem to pay attention to the boy are the bullies who are making his life miserable. His mother is busy, his father has left, while the teachers seem to hardly notice his presence. Then Eli appears. She is paler and even more lonely than Oskar. The two of them hang out in the moonlight and snow of the Swedish night. Eli talks to Oskar, asks him questions, pays attention to him, and Oskar falls in love.

Meanwhile, strange deaths start happening. A man hangs a boy in the woods and is interrupted while collecting his blood. It’s the man who looks after Eli, and it quickly becomes clear that she is a vampire – a fact that Oskar accepts with a child’s quiet understanding that the universe is an ineffably strange place.

Emboldened, perhaps by his relationship with Eli, Oskar makes a stand against the little thug who has been making his life miserable. It buys him some time, but ultimately it leads to a terrible showdown and a decision that will change Oskar’s life.

What is so striking about Let The Right One In is the quiet, icy desperation of the background against which the action plays out. The adults spend all their time miserable, drinking too much and failing to achieve anything and not even the deep layers of snow can hide the essential misery of their lives amongst the tower blocks of the estate on which they live.

And while the adults are lost and clueless, the children are blank and ruthless – taunting each other and committing casual acts of violence without blinking.

This is not a story of the supernatural, it’s the story of lost lives on forgotten estates all across the world. Eli offers Oscar the hope of escape – though her previous guardian pays a horrific price for his years of service.

Light The Right One In is superbly made, beautifully shot in muted tones – at times you forget it has been shot in colour – and brilliantly acted, especially by the two young leads. There’s very little “action” but there is a tremendous amount of tension – Oskar and Eli tug at the viewers heartstrings – we want them to find happiness and, despite (or perhaps because of) their frequent stillness the two young leads grip the viewers attention.