A stylish coming of age story with twist.

Byline: DAMON SMITH

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Lat Den Ratte Komma In) (Cert 15, 115 mins), Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, Horror/Drama, also available to buy DVD pounds 17.99/Blu-ray pounds 24.99 Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lena Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Patrik Rydmark.

TOMAS Alfredson directs this breathtaking, unconventional coming of age story, adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Linqvist from his own novel. Set in and around a snow-laden housing estate in 1980s Stockholm, the story centres on 12-year-old loner Oskar (Hedebrant), who lives with his divorced mother and is bullied mercilessly at school by Conny (Rydmark) and various oafish sidekicks.

Escaping for fresh air in the courtyard one night, Oskar meets the strange yet alluring Eli (Leandersson), a little girl of a similar age who seems just as lonely and disenchanted with the world. She lives with her guardian Hakan (Ragnar), who often goes out late, leaving the girl alone in their apartment. Oskar senses something different about his new friend asks her tentatively, "Are you a vampire?" She seems unsurprised, responding: "I live off blood, yes." As the relationship between the two children deepens, Oskar finds the courage to stand up to the bullies. Stylishly directed and bloody from the outset, Let The Right One In puts a fresh spin on a familiar story of alienation.

Rating: *****

KNOWING (Cert 15, 115 mins), E1 Entertainment, Sci-Fi/Action/Thriller/Romance, also available to buy DVD pounds 19.99/Blu-ray pounds 24.99 Starring: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury, Lara Robinson, Ben Mendelsohn. FIFTY years after his elementary school buried a time capsule, young Caleb Koestler (Canterbury) is given a sheet of paper written by one of the old students, Lucinda Embry (Robinson), which at first glances seems to be lines of random numbers. When Caleb's widower father, astrophysics professor John Koestler (Cage), examines the sequence late one night, he discovers that contained within the sheet of paper are the precise dates, death tolls and geographical co-ordinates of every major catastrophe to befall mankind. More worrying, there are three more sets of numbers pointing to imminent catastrophes. A plane crash close to home validates John's assertion, and the scientist races against time to unlock the secret of the final numbers with help from Embry's daughter Diana (Byrne) and granddaughter Abby (Robinson again). Knowing is an apocalyptic thriller, which gradually surrenders its loose grasp on reality as father and son become embroiled in a series of spectacular, jaw-dropping action set-pieces and somehow keep a straight face as the plot twists and turns to its outlandish resolution. Rating: *** LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS (Cert 15, 83 mins), Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, Comedy/Horror/Romance, also available to buy DVD pounds 17.99/Blu-ray pounds 24.99) Starring: James Corden, Mathew Horne, MyAnna Buring, Lucy Gaskell, Paul McGann, Silvia Colloca, Tiffany Mulheron, Ashley Mulheron, Louise Dylan.

SHORTLY after his unfaithful girlfriend Judy (Gaskell) dumps him for the seventh time, eternal slacker Jimmy Maclaren (Horne) goes hiking with girl-crazed best friend, Fletch (Corden). They huff and puff all the way to the village of Cragwich, blissfully unaware that every time a local girl turns 18, she is transformed into a Sapphic fanged fiend. Jimmy and Fletch join forces with a campervan full of sexy, foreign students - Lotte (Buring), Heidi (Tiffany Mulheron), Trudi (Ashley Mulheron) and Anke (Dylan) - to dispatch lesbian vampire queen Camilla (Colloca) and her undead minions. A disgruntled local vicar (McGann) joins the good fight as one by one, the girls succumb to a hungry army of lascivious bloodsuckers. Will Jimmy and Fletch be able to resist a nibble? Lesbian Vampire Killers is a deplorable horror spoof that wedges a tongue in cheek and a stake in its humourless heart. The tone throughout is juvenile, ogling the frequently topless female cast and littering the script with puerile humour and copious expletives. Rating: * [e-mail]

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* DON'T PLAY WITH KNIVES!: Kare Hedebrant as Oskar in Let The Right One In (S)