Win tickets for Let the Right One in

Let the Right One in, a vampire film set in a snowbound Swedish town, has received excellent reviews from the critics. After watching it last night, we're inclined to agree – if you like well-made, intelligent horror, you need to see this.

It tells the story of 12-year-old Oskar – an awkward, lonely boy who is bullied at school. When he meets Eli, he thinks he's found a soul mate: she's friendless too, and she claims to be “more or less” his age. She's vague on this point because although she looks like a teenager, she's been around for 200 years, feeding off blood to stay alive.

Like all the best vampires, Eli isn't evil through and through. Feeding isn't a pleasure, it's a necessity she has to endure. In contrast, Oskar's tormentor Conny is a little Satan in the making. In this film, it's the children who terrorise, not the adults; whether it's Conny's gang threatening to submerge Oskar in an icy lake, or Eli pouncing catlike onto the shoulders of an unlucky passer-by.

Fans of Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and last year's Spanish horror The Orphanage will enjoy Let the Right One in. Beautifully shot with sudden, horrific flashes of gore, it's slow-building and atmospheric rather than packed with tension. Director Tomas Alfredson has managed to do something fresh with the age-old vampire fable in a film that's as thoughtful as it is frightening.

Let the Right One in (15) is showing at Cornerhouse, Oxford Road from Friday 10-Thursday 23 April.