Scandinavian Vampires

This afternoon we went back up to SLC to watch "Let the Right One In" (I posted the trailer on my vampire blog). I liked a lot of things about the movie--the sweet awkwardness of the two protagonists, the lovely, heartbreaking forshadowing of Oskar's doom--but mostly, the details about the vampires. I love the bone-deep cold of the movie, that the vampire is cold as stone. I gave a little jump of surprise and delight when Eli scrambles up the wall like a spider or a bat. I love that they sleep all day in the dark, that they change when the bloodlust is on them (but not too much or grotesquely, like the Buffy vamps), that some new vamps are suicidal, that they burst into flames in the sunlight. I quibble with the fact that a once and non-fatally bitten human awakens next as a vamp--nobody has improved on Bram Stoker's seductive ritual of three bites and an exchange of blood for creating a vampire. Guess I'm just a conservative traditionalist that way. No sparkling, sunwalking, self-disciplined bloodsuckers for me. But Eli is the perfect 12 year old Swedish vampire, if you find such a creature intriguing.