A tale of a young boy meeting a young girl vampire and falling head over heels for her certainly sounds like a nightmare, particularly if you’ve been unfortunate enough to see any of the Twilight films. But Let Me In is different, to American films at least.

Growing up can be hard for any twelve-year-old, but it’s even harder if you’re being bullied at school like Owen (Kodo Smit-McPhee) is. His home life isn’t much better; not only is he an only child, but his parents are separated and likely to get divorced.

One day though, while sitting outside in a play area on his own, a young girl mysteriously appears. Her name is Abby (Chloe Moritz) and it turns out she’s his new neighbour. Despite an initial chilliness between the pair, they become friends. The closer they get though, the more difficult it appears for Abby to share a very dark secret with Owen: she’s a vampire. Meanwhile, the town is experiencing a number of bizarre murders...

Something tells me I'm gonna pay for using that exploding jam doughnut.

Although the premise has the disturbing ring of a teen Twilight about it, thankfully it’s nothing of the kind. What it is, is the first theatrical release by the newly resurrected Hammer Films in quite some time. And although Christopher Lee isn’t in sight, it’s still quite a chillfest.

Not only does director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) get great performances from his two young leads, but he manages to avoid the usual Hollywood horror clichés for something far more subtle and refined. In fact, it feels more like a European film; and therein lies the problem.

Let Me In is a remake of the superb 2008 Swedish film Let The Right One In, directed by Tomas Alfredson with a screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, adapted from his own novel. It’s beautifully bleak with a strong theme of isolation constantly weaved throughout. With a chance to do something different, for an altogether different market (i.e. one that has problems reading and watching a film at the same time) Reeves produced a film that is beautifully bleak with a strong theme of isolation constantly woven throughout. In other words, Reeves has made exactly the same film.

The films are so similar they could have been separated at birth. Even the fact that they were made on different continents doesn’t stop them felling like they’re conjoined. Not only is the dialogue virtually word for word the same, but the actual locations feel like they were shot in the same place. Even the angles he chooses echo those of the original. He even used the same iconic playground jungle gym as the first film. It’s all a little too eerie for words.

On one hand it only adheres to the argument that US remakes of foreign films are always a bad idea, but at the same time you have to give the film some kudos for the amount of respect it has given the original in not only steering clear of bastardising it every which way, but in being so true to its spirit.

Ultimately it will boil down to whether you like subtitled foreign films or not. If you’ve seen the original – which is still the superior version out of the two – then there’s no great rush to see this. But even if you’re not a fan of subtitled films, you should be aware that this is quite possibly the most European film in style to come out of Hollywood in a long time, which, oddly, is a huge part of its appeal. So if you’re expecting a gorefest akin to the second half of Robert Rodriguez’ From Dusk Till Dawn for example, this isn’t that kind of vampire flick.

Despite its chilly locations and sensibility, this is a truly elegant film with real heart – and a vial or two of blood for good measure – but mostly heart.